The performer enters the video call and right away starts an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, appearing really remorseful. Although she's only a bit behind, she feels compelled to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Thankfully, for a writer, this is exactly what you want to experience. Moreover, it’s fairly unsurprising. Viewers familiar with the unapologetically openly gay and unapologetically crass film titled Bottoms—which she co-wrote with Emma Seligman and starred in together with close companion The Bear’s standout—would already know that she holds plenty to say, be it about identity, intimacy, or the merits of starting a youth fight club. Furthermore, by the end the recent multi-episode show I Love LA, viewers realize that she has additional insights on the struggles of Gen Z life (At 30, Sennott serves as a relatable figure to younger audiences, straddling eras with a knack for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and the actress admits to being a fan, referencing the show together with the HBO hit, Insecure and the innovative program as influences for her series, which details the journey of a social media star Tallulah and ally who is also fledgling agent Maia. However, the largest presence on the moodboard was reserved for Entourage, that program focusing on an emerging A-list actor succeeding in an often-seedy Hollywood (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She started watching it during lockdown, became “hooked”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The concept for I Love LA came—in part—from her own, at first fractious, move to LA and from the cosmic event, a popular occurrence for followers. This represented an era that involved her grasp some big truths, in her career and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Brought up in Connecticut, the star began writing and performing humor while pursuing performance at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “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?”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, performing at amateur nights with Ayo and posting hysterical (and decidedly) unconventional online content on the internet. One, Baby Cult, depicted a group of women obsessively drawn to pregnancy; another portrayed being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being stuck in a horror film. By chance, she met Emma through the university’s film scene and ended up appearing in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of Uncut Gems. A recurring idea of her path, she explains, has been peers supporting her, instead of traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, stating amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Career Breakthrough
Individuals who were skeptical about Sennott then will likely be kicking themselves today. In what she describes as a “incredibly circular” development, she seems to have manifested her dream vehicle. Previously she posted a clip named “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she mocked film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a series about Angelenos juggling advantages of internet fame (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a intoxicated thief, and potentially becoming a unreliable persona non grata). Some could tempting to make a show about digital influence that was extremely aspirational—or, more problematic, one that mocked at its subjects. I Love LA avoids both, resulting in a depiction of affluent twentysomething life that’s frank about the chaos and the appeal.
Nuanced Portrayal
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” she says. “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
