The star appears on the online meeting and immediately begins an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, sounding truly regretful. Despite being only a bit delayed, she wants 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!” Thankfully, during an interview, that’s exactly what one hopes to encounter. Moreover, it’s quite predictable. Those who have seen the boldly queer and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with her creative partner and starred in with collaborator The Bear’s standout—would already know that Sennott holds a lot to discuss, ranging from about gender, sex, or the appeal of starting a high-school brawl society. And, once you finish her recent multi-episode HBO series I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she has further thoughts regarding the challenges of Gen Z life (At 30, Sennott is a bridge of the gang, straddling eras adept for connecting millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott admits to being an admirer, naming the show alongside the classic series, Insecure and Atlanta as guides for the project, which details the journey of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion and aspiring representative Maia. However, the largest spot on creative vision was reserved for the HBO series, the HBO sitcom depicting an up-and-coming A-list actor making his way in a gritty entertainment industry (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott started watching it amid COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and chose 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 says. The concept for this project came—partly—from personal, originally fractious, relocation to Los Angeles and from her astrological phase, a much-talked-about event for astrology heads. This represented an era that saw her understand significant truths, in her career and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she says. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Humble Origins
Raised in New England, Sennott began writing and performing comedy while pursuing performance at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “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, performing at open mics with Ayo and uploading uproarious (and very) weird comedy videos digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females intensely fixated on having babies; another portrayed being employed at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being trapped in a scary movie. By chance, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and ultimately featuring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her journey, she notes, has been peers offering opportunities, rather than the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, stating humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who were skeptical regarding her previously will surely be regretting it today. As part of she describes as a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she appears to manifested the perfect project. In 2019 she uploaded a video called on LA life on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a show about LA residents juggling advantages of online celebrity (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being labeled as being a intoxicated criminal, and perhaps becoming a unreliable outcast). It would be easy to create a program about online fame that was overly glamorous—or, worse, one that mocked at its subjects. I Love LA steers clear of each, creating a depiction of privileged twentysomething living that’s honest about the mess and the appeal.
Empathetic Approach
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” she says. “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
