The performer enters the online meeting and right away launches into an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, seeming genuinely remorseful. She is only a bit behind, she needs to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, in this context, that’s just what one hopes to experience. Moreover, it’s quite predictable. Viewers who know the fearlessly LGBTQ+ and brash movie titled Bottoms—that she co-wrote with the director and starred in with her friend the talented actress—would understand that she holds a lot to say, whether on gender, sex, or the pros of starting a youth brawl society. Plus, once you finish the new seasonal show titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she holds further thoughts regarding the challenges of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she serves as a relatable figure for this generation, on the cusp adept for bridging both generations).
Inspirations and Creative Vision
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being an admirer, referencing it in addition to Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as inspirations for the project, which tracks the struggles of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also fledgling representative Maia. Notably, the largest spot on creative vision was reserved for Entourage, the show about an up-and-coming Hollywood star making his way in a corrupt LA scene (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott discovered it amid lockdown, became “obsessed”, and chose 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 says. The idea for the series emerged—to some extent—from firsthand, initially rocky, relocation to LA and from the saturn return, a popular event for astrology heads. It was a phase that involved her understand major life lessons, work-wise and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she says. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Humble Origins
Growing up in New England, the star began developing and showcasing comedy while pursuing theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at open mics with her friend and uploading hilarious (and distinctly) unconventional online content on the internet. One, Baby Cult, depicted several females intensely fixated on having babies; another imagined being employed at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being trapped in a horror film. Interestingly, she met Seligman through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of the intense thriller. The big theme of her path, she notes, has been contemporaries supporting her, as opposed to traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, adding humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who were skeptical regarding her earlier will certainly be regretting it now. In what she labels a “incredibly circular” development, she seems to have created the perfect project. In 2019 she posted a video named about Los Angeles online, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a series about Angelenos juggling the perks of online celebrity (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being labeled as being a substance-abusing criminal, and possibly becoming a unreliable persona non grata). It would be simple to create a show about online fame that was extremely idealized—or, more problematic, one that belittled at the characters. The series does neither, creating a portrait of affluent millennial life that’s frank about the grot and the shine.
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
