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The performer enters the video call and right away launches into an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, seeming truly regretful. Despite being only slightly delayed, she wants to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, in this context, that’s just what is ideal to experience. Additionally, it’s fairly predictable. Those who know her fearlessly openly gay and brash project Bottoms—that Sennott penned with the director and featured in alongside close companion the talented actress—would be aware that she possesses much to share, be it on roles, sex, or the merits of creating a teen fight club. Plus, once you finish her latest multi-episode program titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star carries even more perspectives about the challenges of modern youth (At 30, she represents a relatable figure of the gang, on the cusp with a knack for bridging millennials and Gen Z).

Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach

Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and the actress is enthusiastic, citing the show alongside Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as inspirations for I Love LA, which tracks the travails of online personality Tallulah and close companion who is also fledgling representative Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the biggest spot on the moodboard belonged to the HBO series, that show depicting an emerging Hollywood star making his way in a corrupt Hollywood (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it throughout lockdown, became “hooked”, and resolved 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 explains. The idea for I Love LA emerged—to some extent—from personal, initially difficult, move to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a much-talked-about phenomenon for followers. That period marked an era that involved her learn significant life lessons, in her career 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

Brought up in New England, the star started developing and showcasing comedy while pursuing theatre at a prestigious arts school. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

Sennott took matters into her own hands, performing at amateur nights with Ayo and posting uproarious (and decidedly) weird skits on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, centered on characters intensely drawn to motherhood; a different one imagined being employed at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and eventually appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a religious event with echoes of the intense thriller. The big theme of her path, she notes, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, instead of established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, adding with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Manifesting Dreams

Individuals who had doubts about Sennott earlier will surely be feeling foolish today. In what she describes as a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she appears to created an ideal role. In 2019 she posted a clip called about Los Angeles on social media, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about LA residents juggling benefits of online celebrity (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a drug-addled criminal, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). It would be easy to create a series about online fame that was extremely aspirational—or, worse, one that mocked at its subjects. The series avoids both, resulting in a depiction of advantaged twentysomething life that’s frank about the mess and the appeal.

Empathetic Approach

“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