The star appears on the digital interview and at once starts an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, seeming truly regretful. Although she's only slightly behind, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, during an interview, that’s precisely what is ideal to encounter. Additionally, it’s quite predictable. Viewers familiar with her unapologetically LGBTQ+ and brash movie titled Bottoms—that Sennott collaborated on with Emma Seligman and appeared in alongside close companion Ayo Edebiri—will already know that she possesses a lot to share, ranging from about identity, sex, or the appeal of forming a youth fight club. Plus, by the end her recent multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she has additional thoughts on the challenges of young adulthood (As a millennial, she represents an honorary member for this generation, straddling eras adept for straddling different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and the actress admits to being enthusiastic, referencing the show in addition to the classic series, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as influences for the project, which tracks the travails of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and aspiring talent manager Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the most significant influence on concept was reserved for the popular sitcom, the HBO sitcom about an up-and-coming A-list actor making his way in a corrupt LA scene (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott started watching it during COVID-19, became “hooked”, and decided 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 says. The concept for this project came—partly—from firsthand, initially difficult, move to LA and from her saturn return, a popular event for enthusiasts. This represented a time that involved her learn major life lessons, in her career and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “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 the East Coast, Sennott began creating and acting comedy while enrolled in theatre at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “None of the university plays cast me either.” “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
She decided to act independently, appearing at live shows with Ayo and sharing uproarious (and decidedly) bizarre online content on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, depicted several females intensely fixated on having babies; another envisioned working at the brand Hollister as similar to being trapped in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she met Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her career, she says, has been people her own age supporting her, instead of traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, adding humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who had doubts regarding her previously will certainly be regretting it now. In what she describes as a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she appears to achieved an ideal role. A few years back she shared a clip called “it’s LA” online, in which she mocked Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a show about city dwellers balancing benefits of digital stardom (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a substance-abusing criminal, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). It would be tempting to make a program about internet celebrity that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that punched down at the characters. I Love LA does neither, resulting in a representation of affluent millennial existence that’s frank about the grot and the glamour.
Empathetic Approach
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
