The performer enters the video call and at once begins an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, seeming truly regretful. Although she's only a bit late, she wants 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 just what you want to experience. Additionally, it’s fairly unsurprising. Those who know the fearlessly LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass film Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with Emma Seligman and starred in alongside collaborator The Bear’s standout—will understand that she holds a lot to say, be it about identity, intimacy, or the appeal of creating a teen fight club. Plus, once you finish the latest multi-episode show I Love LA, it is clear that the star holds additional insights regarding the challenges of Gen Z life (At 30, she is a relatable figure for this generation, a tale-end millennial with a knack for connecting different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott is an admirer, citing the show in addition to the classic series, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for her series, which follows the struggles of online personality Tallulah and close companion who is also new talent manager Sennott’s character. However, the most significant presence on the moodboard belonged to the HBO series, the HBO sitcom about an emerging Hollywood star navigating in a corrupt LA scene (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She discovered it during lockdown, became “captivated”, and decided to create a new version on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she notes. The inspiration for this project came—in part—from personal, initially rocky, move to Los Angeles and from her saturn return, a popular event for followers. This represented a time that saw her understand significant truths, in her career and personally. “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 was almost like these biblical tests …”
Starting Out
Brought up in Connecticut, Sennott commenced developing and showcasing humor while enrolled in theatre at a prestigious arts school. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “None of the university plays cast me either.” And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She decided to act independently, appearing at amateur nights with Ayo and posting hilarious (and decidedly) weird skits online. One, titled Baby Cult, depicted several females obsessively obsessed with having babies; another imagined working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she encountered Seligman through NYU’s movie community and ended up starring in her first film, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a religious event with echoes of Uncut Gems. A recurring idea of her journey, she notes, has been peers offering opportunities, as opposed to traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, continuing amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who had doubts about Sennott then will surely be feeling foolish now. Through she describes as a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she seems to have manifested her dream vehicle. In 2019 she uploaded content called on LA life online, in which she parodied film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a comedy about LA residents managing benefits of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your client being labeled as being a intoxicated thief, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). One might tempting to make a series about digital influence that was horribly idealized—or, more problematic, one that mocked at the characters. The series does neither, resulting in a depiction of advantaged millennial life that’s frank about the chaos and the glamour.
Balanced Perspective
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” she observes. “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
