The performer appears on the video call and immediately begins an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, seeming really remorseful. Although she's only a couple of minutes delayed, she feels compelled to justify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s just what one hopes to experience. Moreover, it’s quite expected. Viewers who have seen the fearlessly queer and brash movie titled Bottoms—which she penned with the director and featured in together with collaborator The Bear’s standout—can understand that she possesses much to say, whether on identity, relationships, or the pros of creating a high-school brawl society. And, by the end her latest multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she has further thoughts about the struggles of modern youth (As a millennial, Sennott is a bridge for this generation, on the cusp skilled for straddling both generations).
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and the actress is an admirer, referencing the show alongside the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as influences for her series, which details the struggles of a social media star Tallulah and ally and aspiring talent manager Maia. However, the largest presence on the moodboard was reserved for the HBO series, the show focusing on a rising celebrity navigating in a gritty LA scene (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott started watching it throughout the pandemic, became “captivated”, 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 concept for this project came—to some extent—from firsthand, originally fractious, move to Los Angeles and from her saturn return, a popular event for enthusiasts. That period marked a phase that included her understand significant truths, professionally and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Raised in Connecticut, the star began developing and showcasing comedy while enrolled in theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott seized control, taking the stage at open mics with Edebiri and posting hilarious (and decidedly) bizarre comedy videos on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, depicted several females fetishistically fixated on having babies; another imagined working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being trapped in a thriller. Interestingly, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately featuring in her first film, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her journey, she explains, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, rather than the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she confirms, adding amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Anyone who had doubts about Sennott previously will surely be feeling foolish currently. Through she calls a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she appears to created her dream vehicle. Previously she posted a video titled about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she mocked movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a show about Angelenos juggling advantages of digital stardom (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being labeled as being a drug-addled criminal, and potentially becoming a risky pariah). Some could simple to produce a show about digital influence that was extremely aspirational—or, more problematic, one that belittled at its subjects. The series avoids both, creating a representation of advantaged millennial life that’s honest about the chaos and the glamour.
“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
Elena Vance is a digital strategist with over a decade of experience in UK business consulting, specializing in technology-driven growth solutions.