The comedic talent exploring the side-splitting comedy about that chaotic allure of Gen Z life
The performer appears on the digital interview and right away launches into an explanation. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, sounding truly apologetic. Despite being only a couple of minutes late, she wants to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, for a writer, that’s precisely what one hopes to experience. Additionally, it’s pretty unsurprising. Those who know the fearlessly LGBTQ+ and brash film titled Bottoms—which she collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in with collaborator The Bear’s standout—will understand that Sennott has a lot to share, whether about roles, intimacy, or the appeal of starting a youth fight club. And, by the end her recent multi-episode show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star carries additional insights about the struggles of modern youth (At 30, she serves as an honorary member of the gang, on the cusp with a knack for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress admits to being a fan, naming it together with the HBO hit, Insecure and Atlanta as influences for the project, which details the struggles of online personality Tallulah and ally who is also new agent Maia. However, the largest influence on creative vision was reserved for the popular sitcom, the HBO sitcom focusing on an emerging celebrity succeeding in an often-seedy LA scene (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She started watching it throughout COVID-19, became “hooked”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective 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 idea for the series originated—to some extent—from personal, initially fractious, transition to Los Angeles and from the saturn return, a popular event for enthusiasts. That period marked a phase that included her grasp significant life lessons, professionally and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she admits. “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…”
Starting Out
Growing up in Connecticut, Sennott began developing and showcasing humor while pursuing 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.” I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, performing at live shows with Ayo and sharing hysterical (and very) unconventional online content digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on a group of women intensely fixated on pregnancy; a different one portrayed being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being stuck in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she met Seligman through the university’s film scene and eventually featuring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a Jewish wake with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her career, she explains, has been contemporaries supporting her, rather than the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, adding amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Rising Success
Anyone who were skeptical regarding Sennott earlier will certainly be feeling foolish currently. Through she calls a “astonishingly complete” development, she appears to achieved the perfect project. A few years back she posted content called on LA life on social media, in which she parodied movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a series about Angelenos managing advantages of internet fame (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your associate being suspected of being a drug-addled thief, and perhaps becoming a unreliable persona non grata). Some could tempting to create a series about online fame that was extremely idealized—or, worse, one that punched down at its subjects. This show steers clear of each, making for a depiction of advantaged twentysomething existence that’s frank about the mess and the glamour.
Empathetic Approach
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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