🔗 Share this article

The performer enters the online meeting and right away starts an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, seeming genuinely apologetic. Despite being only a bit late, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, in this context, this is just what is ideal to hear. Additionally, it’s quite unsurprising. Anyone who know the boldly queer and unapologetically crass film Bottoms—that she co-wrote with the director and starred in together with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—will already know that Sennott has plenty to say, be it about identity, sex, or the merits of starting a high-school combat group. Furthermore, once you finish her new multi-episode show I Love LA, it is clear that she holds even more insights on the challenges of modern youth (Now in her thirties, she is a bridge of the gang, straddling eras with a knack for connecting different age groups).

Inspirations and Artistic Direction

Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and the actress admits to being a fan, citing it alongside the classic series, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for her series, which details the travails of a social media star Tallulah and ally and fledgling representative portrayed by Sennott. Notably, the most significant influence on concept was reserved for the popular sitcom, that show focusing on an emerging celebrity succeeding in a gritty entertainment industry (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She discovered it amid lockdown, became “captivated”, and chose to create a new version 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 says. The idea for I Love LA originated—in part—from firsthand, originally difficult, move to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a frequently discussed phenomenon for enthusiasts. This represented a time that saw her understand some big life lessons, work-wise and in private life. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she recalls. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Humble Origins

Raised in New England, Sennott commenced creating and acting humor while studying performance at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” 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?”

She seized control, taking the stage at live shows with Edebiri and uploading hilarious (and decidedly) bizarre skits digitally. One, titled Baby Cult, centered on characters intensely drawn to having babies; another imagined working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being stuck in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Emma through the university’s film scene and eventually appearing in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a Jewish wake with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her career, she notes, has been peers giving her a shot, as opposed to the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, adding humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”

Rising Success

Those who were skeptical about Sennott previously will surely be feeling foolish currently. Through she calls a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she has achieved an ideal role. A few years back she posted a clip called about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she parodied movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a show about Angelenos managing the perks of digital stardom (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being suspected of being a intoxicated thief, and perhaps becoming a unreliable pariah). It would be tempting to make a show about online fame that was overly idealized—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at those depicted. I Love LA does neither, creating a depiction of affluent twentysomething living that’s frank about the mess and the shine.

Balanced Perspective

“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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