The star appears on the online meeting and at once starts an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, appearing truly remorseful. Despite being only slightly late, she feels compelled to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, in this context, this is precisely what is ideal to encounter. Additionally, it’s quite unsurprising. Viewers who know the boldly queer and outspoken film titled Bottoms—that Sennott co-wrote with her creative partner and featured in alongside collaborator Ayo Edebiri—can understand that she holds plenty to say, be it on roles, relationships, or the pros of starting a youth brawl society. Plus, by the end the recent seasonal program titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she carries additional perspectives regarding the struggles of Gen Z life (As a millennial, Sennott is an honorary member to younger audiences, straddling eras adept for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and the actress is enthusiastic, referencing the show alongside the classic series, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as influences for I Love LA, which follows the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and ally and fledgling talent manager portrayed by Sennott. Notably, the largest influence on concept went to Entourage, the show about an emerging Hollywood star making his way in an often-seedy LA scene (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She discovered it during the pandemic, became “captivated”, and chose to add a fresh perspective on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she explains. The inspiration for the series came—partly—from personal, at first rocky, transition to Tinseltown and from the astrological phase, a much-talked-about phenomenon for astrology heads. That period marked a time that involved her understand significant life lessons, in her career and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Starting Out
Growing up in Connecticut, the star started writing and performing humor while studying performance at a prestigious arts school. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She took matters into her own hands, performing at live shows with her friend and sharing uproarious (and very) weird online content digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted a group of women obsessively obsessed with motherhood; another envisioned working at a trendy retail outlet as like being trapped in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she met Seligman through the university’s film scene and ultimately featuring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her path, she explains, has been people her own age offering opportunities, instead of traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, stating with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”
Rising Success
Individuals who had doubts about her then will surely be feeling foolish currently. Through she calls a “astonishingly complete” development, she appears to created the perfect project. In 2019 she posted a clip named “it’s LA” on social media, in which she parodied film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a show about Angelenos managing benefits of internet fame (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your client being accused of being a drug-addled thief, and potentially becoming a unreliable persona non grata). It would be simple to create a series about online fame that was horribly aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA steers clear of each, resulting in a depiction of privileged twentysomething living that’s honest about the grot and the shine.
Empathetic Approach
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” she comments. “I think that young people have been through a lot – I’m mostly thinking of people younger than me, like my little sister, who went to college during Covid, so she had to come home, or my other sister who was doing school online.”|“The younger generation has faced significant
