The actress and writer on her side-splitting series portraying the grotty appeal of Gen Z life
The star joins the digital interview and right away launches into an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, sounding truly regretful. Although she's only a couple of minutes delayed, she wants to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Thankfully, in this context, this is just what you want to experience. Additionally, it’s pretty expected. Those familiar with her fearlessly openly gay and unapologetically crass movie Bottoms—that she penned with the director and featured in together with her friend The Bear’s standout—will already know that she possesses a lot to say, be it about roles, intimacy, or the appeal of creating a high-school fight club. Plus, after watching her latest multi-episode show titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star carries even more insights regarding the challenges of modern youth (As a millennial, she is a bridge to younger audiences, on the cusp adept for straddling both generations).
Influences and Creative Vision
Parallels to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and the actress readily acknowledges a fan, referencing it in addition to Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as inspirations for I Love LA, which tracks the travails of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also new agent Maia. However, the biggest spot on concept belonged to the popular sitcom, the program focusing on an emerging Hollywood star making his way in an often-seedy LA scene (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott discovered it amid the pandemic, became “captivated”, and decided to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The inspiration for I Love LA came—to some extent—from firsthand, at first difficult, relocation to Los Angeles and from her cosmic event, a much-talked-about phenomenon for astrology heads. That period marked a time that involved her grasp some big insights, in her career and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “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
Brought up in New England, Sennott commenced developing and showcasing stand-up while studying theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “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. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott decided to act independently, appearing at live shows with her friend and sharing hysterical (and distinctly) unconventional skits digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed characters intensely obsessed with motherhood; another portrayed working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being caught in a thriller. By chance, she encountered Emma through campus film circles and ended up featuring in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a funeral gathering with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her career, she notes, has been peers giving her a shot, rather than the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, adding with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who had doubts about Sennott previously will certainly be feeling foolish now. Through she describes as a “incredibly circular” development, she has manifested an ideal role. In 2019 she uploaded a video named on LA life online, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a show about LA residents managing benefits of online celebrity (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being suspected of being a intoxicated stealer, and possibly becoming a unreliable persona non grata). Some could tempting to create a show about internet celebrity that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that punched down at its subjects. I Love LA avoids both, making for a representation of affluent young adult existence that’s honest about the mess and the glamour.
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