The actress and writer on the uproarious show about that messy glamour of younger generation lifestyle
The star enters the online meeting and right away begins an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, sounding really apologetic. Despite being only a couple of minutes late, she needs to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Thankfully, during an interview, this is exactly what you want to experience. Besides, it’s fairly expected. Anyone familiar with her boldly openly gay and outspoken project titled Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with the director and starred in alongside her friend Ayo Edebiri—can be aware that she has a lot to share, be it on gender, intimacy, or the pros of forming a youth brawl society. Plus, by the end the new eight-part show titled I Love LA, viewers realize that the star carries further perspectives regarding the struggles of young adulthood (As a millennial, Sennott serves as a relatable figure of the gang, on the cusp with a knack for connecting millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott readily acknowledges a fan, naming it in addition to the HBO hit, the acclaimed comedy and the innovative program as inspirations for her series, which details the journey of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also new talent manager portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the biggest influence on concept went to the HBO series, the show focusing on a rising celebrity making his way in a gritty Hollywood (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott started watching it amid COVID-19, became “hooked”, and chose to create a new version on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she notes. The inspiration for this project came—partly—from firsthand, originally rocky, relocation to Tinseltown and from the saturn return, a frequently discussed occurrence for followers. This represented a phase that involved her understand some big insights, in her career and personally. “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. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Brought up in the East Coast, Sennott began creating and acting humor while pursuing performance at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
She decided to act independently, appearing at amateur nights with her friend and sharing uproarious (and very) weird online content digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed characters intensely obsessed with pregnancy; a different one portrayed being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being trapped in a scary movie. By chance, she connected with Emma through campus film circles and eventually starring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her journey, she says, has been people her own age offering opportunities, rather than the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, stating with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Rising Success
Anyone who had doubts about Sennott previously will likely be kicking themselves currently. In what she describes as a “astonishingly complete” development, she seems to have created her dream vehicle. In 2019 she uploaded content named about Los Angeles on social media, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a series about city dwellers balancing benefits of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being suspected of being a substance-abusing criminal, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). Some could simple to create a show about digital influence that was horribly idealized—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at those depicted. I Love LA does neither, making for a portrait of affluent twentysomething existence that’s candid about the mess and the appeal.
Nuanced Portrayal
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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