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The star enters the digital interview and immediately launches into an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, sounding really regretful. Despite being only slightly behind, she needs to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, for a writer, that’s precisely what one hopes to encounter. Besides, it’s fairly expected. Those who know her boldly LGBTQ+ and brash project Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with Emma Seligman and appeared in together with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—will be aware that she possesses plenty to share, be it about gender, sex, or the merits of starting a high-school fight club. Furthermore, by the end the latest eight-part HBO series I Love LA, it is clear that she carries additional insights about the struggles of young adulthood (At 30, Sennott represents a relatable figure of the gang, a tale-end millennial skilled for straddling different age groups).

Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach

Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and the actress admits to being enthusiastic, referencing it in addition to Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Donald Glover’s series as influences for the project, which follows the struggles of an influencer Tallulah and ally and new representative Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the most significant spot on creative vision was reserved for the popular sitcom, the show focusing on an up-and-coming Hollywood star navigating in an often-seedy LA scene (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott discovered it amid the pandemic, became “captivated”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.

“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she says. The inspiration for I Love LA emerged—partly—from personal, initially difficult, relocation to Los Angeles and from her astrological phase, a popular event for followers. This represented an era that saw her learn some big life lessons, in her career and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” 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…”

Starting Out

Raised in New England, the star started writing and performing stand-up while pursuing theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

She took matters into her own hands, appearing at live shows with her friend and posting hysterical (and distinctly) unconventional comedy videos on the internet. One, Baby Cult, followed characters fetishistically drawn to having babies; another envisioned working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being caught in a thriller. By chance, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ended up starring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a religious event with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she notes, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, rather than established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she repeats, adding humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”

Rising Success

Anyone who had doubts regarding her earlier will certainly be regretting it currently. Through she describes as a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she appears to achieved the perfect project. In 2019 she uploaded a clip named on LA life online, in which she mocked Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a show about LA residents balancing the perks of digital stardom (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being labeled as being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a risky persona non grata). Some could simple to produce a show about internet celebrity that was overly glamorous—or, more problematic, one that mocked at those depicted. This show steers clear of each, creating a depiction of affluent millennial living that’s candid about the grot 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