The star joins the video call and at once starts an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, appearing really remorseful. Although she's only a couple of minutes late, she wants to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Thankfully, during an interview, that’s precisely what you want to encounter. Moreover, it’s pretty unsurprising. Viewers who have seen the boldly openly gay and outspoken film titled Bottoms—which she penned with the director and featured in together with her friend Ayo Edebiri—can already know that she possesses plenty to discuss, whether on gender, intimacy, or the pros of forming a youth brawl society. And, by the end her recent seasonal program titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star has further thoughts regarding the struggles of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, she represents a bridge to younger audiences, straddling eras skilled for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and the actress readily acknowledges a fan, citing it alongside the classic series, Insecure and Atlanta as inspirations for I Love LA, which follows the journey of online personality Tallulah and close companion who is also aspiring representative Sennott’s character. Notably, the most significant influence on the moodboard belonged to the HBO series, that HBO sitcom depicting an up-and-coming Hollywood star navigating in an often-seedy Hollywood (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it throughout COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and chose to put her own twist on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she says. The idea for I Love LA originated—partly—from firsthand, originally rocky, transition to Los Angeles and from the astrological phase, a frequently discussed phenomenon for followers. That period marked an era that involved her grasp some big life lessons, work-wise and in private life. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she says. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Starting Out
Growing up in New England, the star began developing and showcasing humor while enrolled in acting at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “None of the university plays cast me either.” And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, appearing at open mics with Ayo and posting uproarious (and very) bizarre skits digitally. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted characters intensely fixated on pregnancy; a different one envisioned being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being caught in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she met Emma through the university’s film scene and eventually appearing in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her career, she says, has been people her own age giving her a shot, instead of established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, continuing humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who had doubts regarding her previously will likely be regretting it today. In what she labels a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she has achieved the perfect project. A few years back she posted a clip called on LA life on social media, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a series about Angelenos juggling advantages of digital stardom (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a drug-addled criminal, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). Some could tempting to produce a series about digital influence that was overly idealized—or, worse, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA avoids both, making for a representation of advantaged millennial life that’s candid about the mess 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
