🔗 Share this article

The star appears on the video call and right away starts an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, seeming truly apologetic. Despite being only a couple of minutes late, she feels compelled to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, during an interview, this is precisely what you want to hear. Moreover, it’s quite predictable. Viewers who have seen her unapologetically openly gay and unapologetically crass movie Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with the director and starred in alongside close companion The Bear’s standout—will understand that she possesses a lot to discuss, be it about roles, intimacy, or the merits of creating a teen fight club. Furthermore, after watching the latest multi-episode show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she carries even more thoughts on the struggles of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, Sennott serves as a relatable figure for this generation, on the cusp with a knack for bridging millennials and Gen Z).

Influences and Artistic Direction

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and the actress is a fan, citing it alongside Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Donald Glover’s series as influences for I Love LA, which follows the travails of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also aspiring representative Maia. However, the most significant presence on creative vision belonged to the popular sitcom, the show depicting an emerging A-list actor succeeding in a corrupt LA scene (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She started watching it throughout COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective 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 notes. The inspiration for this project emerged—partly—from personal, originally difficult, relocation to Los Angeles and from her cosmic event, a popular event for astrology heads. It was a time that included her learn some big life lessons, in her career and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Early Beginnings

Growing up in New England, the star began creating and acting humor while enrolled in theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “None of the university plays cast me either.” And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

She seized control, performing at amateur nights with Edebiri and uploading hilarious (and distinctly) unconventional skits digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted characters obsessively fixated on motherhood; a different one envisioned being employed at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being caught in a horror film. By chance, she met Seligman through the university’s film scene and eventually appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a religious event with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her path, she notes, has been people her own age offering opportunities, instead of the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she confirms, stating with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”

Rising Success

Those who questioned about her then will surely be regretting it currently. Through she calls a “incredibly circular” story, she seems to have manifested her dream vehicle. A few years back she shared a clip named about Los Angeles on social media, in which she parodied film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a comedy about Angelenos managing benefits of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being suspected of being a intoxicated stealer, and perhaps becoming a risky outcast). It would be tempting to create a show about digital influence that was extremely aspirational—or, worse, one that mocked at the characters. I Love LA avoids both, resulting in a portrait of privileged millennial existence that’s honest about the mess and the shine.

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