🔗 Share this article

The star appears on the online meeting and right away starts an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, sounding genuinely remorseful. Although she's only a couple of minutes late, 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!” Luckily, in this context, that’s just what is ideal to hear. Moreover, it’s fairly expected. Those familiar with her boldly openly gay and unapologetically crass movie Bottoms—that Sennott co-wrote with her creative partner and starred in together with close companion The Bear’s standout—can understand that she has a lot to discuss, whether about identity, relationships, or the pros of starting a high-school combat group. Furthermore, once you finish her new eight-part show I Love LA, viewers realize that she carries even more insights regarding the challenges of Gen Z life (At 30, she represents a bridge for this generation, straddling eras adept for connecting millennials and Gen Z).

Influences and Storytelling Approach

Parallels to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and the actress readily acknowledges an admirer, referencing the show alongside Sex and the City, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as guides for her series, which tracks the travails of an influencer Tallulah and close companion and new talent manager Maia. However, the most significant presence on the moodboard belonged to the HBO series, the show about an emerging A-list actor succeeding in a gritty entertainment industry (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott started watching it throughout the pandemic, became “hooked”, and resolved to create a new version on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.

“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she explains. The idea for this project emerged—to some extent—from her own, originally fractious, relocation to Tinseltown and from the cosmic event, a popular event for astrology heads. It was a time that saw her learn significant insights, work-wise and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she recalls. “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

Growing up in Connecticut, the star started creating and acting humor while pursuing performance at a prestigious arts school. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “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. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

Sennott seized control, appearing at amateur nights with Ayo and sharing uproarious (and distinctly) unconventional skits online. One, Baby Cult, depicted characters fetishistically fixated on pregnancy; a different one portrayed working at the brand Hollister as similar to being trapped in a thriller. By chance, she met Emma through campus film circles and eventually featuring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her path, she says, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, rather than the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, adding with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”

Manifesting Dreams

Those who questioned about Sennott earlier will surely be regretting it currently. As part of she labels a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she seems to have created an ideal role. A few years back she shared a clip named “it’s LA” online, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a series about city dwellers balancing benefits of online celebrity (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a drug-addled thief, and perhaps becoming a risky persona non grata). One might simple to create a show about online fame that was horribly aspirational—or, more problematic, one that punched down at the characters. The series does neither, resulting in a depiction of advantaged twentysomething life that’s honest about the mess 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 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