The actress and writer on her uproarious show portraying that messy allure of Gen Z life
The star enters the online meeting and right away starts an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, appearing genuinely remorseful. Despite being only a bit late, she feels compelled to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, in this context, this is exactly what one hopes to experience. Besides, it’s pretty unsurprising. Viewers who know the boldly queer and outspoken movie titled Bottoms—that Sennott collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in with her friend the talented actress—will be aware that Sennott has plenty to share, be it on identity, intimacy, or the appeal of starting a high-school combat group. And, by the end the recent multi-episode HBO series I Love LA, it is clear that the star holds further perspectives about the darker side of Gen Z life (At 30, she serves as a bridge to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial with a knack for connecting millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and the actress is enthusiastic, citing the show together with the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as influences for I Love LA, which follows the journey of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and fledgling representative portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the biggest influence on the moodboard went to the popular sitcom, that HBO sitcom about an emerging A-list actor making his way in a corrupt Hollywood (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it during COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and resolved to put her own twist 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 says. The inspiration for I Love LA emerged—to some extent—from her own, originally difficult, move to Tinseltown and from the saturn return, a popular phenomenon for enthusiasts. This represented a time that involved her understand some big life lessons, professionally and in private life. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she says. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in New England, the star began creating and acting stand-up while enrolled in performance at a prestigious arts school. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She seized control, performing at live shows with her friend and sharing hilarious (and distinctly) weird comedy videos digitally. One, titled Baby Cult, centered on characters fetishistically obsessed with pregnancy; another envisioned being employed at the brand Hollister as akin to being caught in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she met Seligman through NYU’s movie community and eventually featuring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her journey, she says, has been peers giving her a shot, instead of established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she confirms, adding amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who were skeptical regarding her then will certainly be kicking themselves currently. In what she calls a “wild, full-circle” story, she appears to manifested her dream vehicle. Previously she posted content called “it’s LA” online, in which she mocked Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s a lead creator (with the co-writer) of a show about Angelenos juggling the perks of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being suspected of being a drug-addled stealer, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). It would be tempting to create a program about online fame that was overly idealized—or, worse, one that mocked at its subjects. The series steers clear of each, resulting in a representation of privileged twentysomething living that’s frank about the mess and the glamour.
Empathetic Approach
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
