The performer appears on the video call and immediately starts an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, seeming genuinely remorseful. Despite being only slightly behind, she feels compelled to clarify. “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, for a writer, that’s exactly what is ideal to encounter. Moreover, it’s fairly predictable. Viewers who have seen her fearlessly LGBTQ+ and brash film titled Bottoms—that she penned with the director and featured in alongside close companion the talented actress—would understand that she holds plenty to discuss, whether on identity, intimacy, or the appeal of starting a teen fight club. And, once you finish her latest eight-part program I Love LA, it is clear that she has additional perspectives about the darker side of modern youth (Now in her thirties, Sennott is an honorary member to younger audiences, on the cusp with a knack for bridging both generations).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and Sennott readily acknowledges a fan, citing the show in addition to Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as guides for the project, which follows the struggles of online personality Tallulah and close companion and aspiring talent manager portrayed by Sennott. Notably, the most significant spot on the moodboard was reserved for Entourage, that program depicting an up-and-coming celebrity navigating in a gritty LA scene (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She began viewing it during COVID-19, became “hooked”, and decided to create a new version on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she notes. The idea for this project emerged—to some extent—from firsthand, at first difficult, move to LA and from the saturn return, a popular phenomenon for enthusiasts. It was a time that saw her grasp major truths, in her career and personally. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Starting Out
Brought up in Connecticut, Sennott commenced writing and performing comedy while studying performance at a prestigious arts school. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she says. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. 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 hysterical (and decidedly) bizarre comedy videos on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on characters obsessively drawn to pregnancy; another imagined working at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being stuck in a scary movie. By chance, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and ultimately appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her journey, she notes, has been people her own age giving her a shot, rather than traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, adding amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Rising Success
Individuals who questioned regarding her earlier will likely be kicking themselves now. Through she describes as a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she has manifested an ideal role. A few years back she uploaded a video named on LA life on the internet, in which she mocked film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a show about Angelenos managing the perks of online celebrity (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being accused of being a drug-addled stealer, and potentially becoming a risky outcast). It would be easy to make a show about internet celebrity that was overly aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at the characters. The series does neither, making for a portrait of privileged millennial living that’s candid about the chaos and the appeal.
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 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
