The star enters the digital interview and right away launches into an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, sounding genuinely remorseful. She is only a bit delayed, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, for a writer, that’s precisely what you want to experience. Besides, it’s quite unsurprising. Those familiar with the unapologetically LGBTQ+ and brash film titled Bottoms—which she co-wrote with her creative partner and starred in together with close companion Ayo Edebiri—can already know that Sennott has much to say, be it on gender, relationships, or the pros of creating a high-school combat group. Plus, by the end her recent seasonal HBO series I Love LA, viewers realize that she carries further perspectives regarding the challenges of young adulthood (As a millennial, she serves as a bridge for this generation, on the cusp skilled for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and Sennott admits to being a fan, citing the show alongside the HBO hit, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as guides for I Love LA, which follows the travails of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and aspiring agent Maia. Perhaps, the biggest spot on creative vision belonged to Entourage, the program focusing on an emerging A-list actor navigating in a corrupt Hollywood (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott discovered it during the pandemic, became “captivated”, and decided to create a new version on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she says. The idea for this project emerged—partly—from firsthand, originally rocky, move to Los Angeles and from her cosmic event, a frequently discussed phenomenon for enthusiasts. That period marked a phase that saw her understand major truths, in her career and personally. “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…”
Humble Origins
Brought up in the East Coast, Sennott commenced developing and showcasing stand-up while studying theatre at a prestigious arts school. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
Sennott seized control, taking the stage at live shows with Ayo and uploading hilarious (and distinctly) bizarre comedy videos on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted several females obsessively fixated on having babies; a different one imagined working at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being trapped in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she met Emma through campus film circles and eventually starring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her path, she explains, has been peers supporting her, instead of established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, stating amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Rising Success
Anyone who questioned regarding Sennott then will certainly be feeling foolish currently. As part of she calls a “wild, full-circle” story, she appears to created an ideal role. In 2019 she uploaded a clip named “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she lampooned film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s a lead creator (with the co-writer) of a series about Angelenos managing the perks of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being accused of being a substance-abusing stealer, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). It would be tempting to create a series about digital influence that was horribly idealized—or, more problematic, one that mocked at the characters. The series avoids both, resulting in a representation of affluent millennial life that’s honest about the chaos and the shine.
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 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
