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The performer enters the digital interview and at once begins an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, seeming really regretful. Although she's only a bit behind, she feels compelled to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, in this context, this is exactly what you want to experience. Moreover, it’s quite predictable. Viewers who have seen her unapologetically openly gay and outspoken movie Bottoms—that she co-wrote with the director and featured in alongside collaborator The Bear’s standout—can understand that she possesses a lot to say, ranging from about roles, intimacy, or the appeal of starting a high-school fight club. And, once you finish her recent seasonal show titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star holds further thoughts on the challenges of young adulthood (As a millennial, she represents an honorary member of the gang, a tale-end millennial skilled for bridging both generations).

Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and the actress readily acknowledges enthusiastic, citing the show together with the classic series, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for I Love LA, which details the struggles of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and new representative Maia. Perhaps, the biggest presence on the moodboard went to Entourage, the HBO sitcom about an up-and-coming Hollywood star succeeding in a gritty LA scene (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott began viewing it throughout lockdown, became “obsessed”, and resolved to create a new version 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 notes. The concept for this project emerged—to some extent—from her own, at first difficult, transition to Los Angeles and from the saturn return, a frequently discussed phenomenon for astrology heads. This represented a phase that saw her understand significant insights, professionally and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Early Beginnings

Raised in New England, Sennott commenced creating and acting comedy while pursuing performance at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

She seized control, taking the stage at live shows with Edebiri and uploading hilarious (and very) bizarre online content online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females intensely drawn to motherhood; a different one envisioned working at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being trapped in a thriller. By chance, she connected with Emma through the university’s film scene and ended up starring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a funeral gathering with echoes of Uncut Gems. A recurring idea of her path, she notes, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, instead of traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, adding humorously: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”

Rising Success

Anyone who had doubts about Sennott previously will certainly be feeling foolish currently. Through she labels a “incredibly circular” development, she seems to have created her dream vehicle. Previously she shared a video called “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with the co-writer) of a comedy about city dwellers juggling advantages of internet fame (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being accused of being a intoxicated thief, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). It would be tempting to make a program about internet celebrity that was overly aspirational—or, worse, one that punched down at the characters. I Love LA does neither, resulting in a depiction of affluent twentysomething life that’s candid about the mess and the appeal.

Nuanced Portrayal

“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