The star enters the digital interview and at once begins an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, seeming genuinely remorseful. Despite being only slightly delayed, she wants 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 just what you want to experience. Besides, it’s quite unsurprising. Anyone who know her fearlessly openly gay and brash film Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with the director and featured in alongside close companion the talented actress—would understand that Sennott has much to share, ranging from on identity, intimacy, or the merits of starting a high-school brawl society. And, once you finish her latest seasonal show titled I Love LA, it is clear that she carries even more perspectives about the darker side of Gen Z life (As a millennial, Sennott is an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras skilled for connecting different age groups).
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and the actress is an admirer, naming it in addition to Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for her series, which details the struggles of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also new representative Maia. Perhaps, the most significant presence on creative vision belonged to the HBO series, the show about a rising A-list actor making his way in an often-seedy entertainment industry (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott started watching it during lockdown, became “captivated”, and decided 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 concept for I Love LA emerged—in part—from personal, originally fractious, transition to Los Angeles and from her cosmic event, a frequently discussed phenomenon for enthusiasts. This represented a phase that included her learn major insights, work-wise and personally. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” 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…”
Raised in New England, the star commenced creating and acting comedy while studying theatre at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “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 decided to act independently, taking the stage at amateur nights with her friend and sharing hilarious (and decidedly) weird online content online. One, Baby Cult, depicted several females obsessively fixated on motherhood; another imagined being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being stuck in a scary movie. By chance, she connected with Emma through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a Jewish wake with hints of the intense thriller. The central motif of her career, she explains, has been people her own age offering opportunities, instead of established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, stating humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Anyone who had doubts regarding her previously will certainly be kicking themselves today. In what she calls a “wild, full-circle” development, she has achieved an ideal role. In 2019 she posted content called about Los Angeles on social media, in which she mocked film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a series about Angelenos juggling the perks of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your friend being labeled as being a substance-abusing stealer, and perhaps becoming a unreliable pariah). Some could easy to make a show about internet celebrity that was extremely idealized—or, more problematic, one that punched down at the characters. I Love LA does neither, resulting in a depiction of privileged twentysomething existence that’s frank about the chaos and the glamour.
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
Elena Vance is a digital strategist and creative director with over a decade of experience in transforming brands through innovative design.