The performer appears on the video call and at once begins an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, appearing truly remorseful. Although she's only a couple of minutes delayed, she feels compelled to clarify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, in this context, this is exactly what is ideal to encounter. Moreover, it’s quite predictable. Viewers who have seen her boldly openly gay and unapologetically crass film titled Bottoms—that Sennott penned with her creative partner and starred in together with close companion The Bear’s standout—can understand that she has a lot to share, whether about identity, sex, or the appeal of starting a high-school fight club. Furthermore, once you finish the latest multi-episode show titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star has further thoughts about the darker side of Gen Z life (At 30, Sennott represents a relatable figure for this generation, on the cusp adept for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, citing the show in addition to Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as influences for the project, which details the struggles of online personality Tallulah and her friend and new agent Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the most significant influence on creative vision went to Entourage, the program about an up-and-coming Hollywood star making his way in a corrupt LA scene (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott began viewing it throughout lockdown, became “hooked”, and chose 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 says. The idea for this project emerged—partly—from personal, at first rocky, transition to Tinseltown and from the saturn return, a popular occurrence for followers. This represented a time that included her grasp significant insights, in her career and individually. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Humble Origins
Raised in New England, Sennott began developing and showcasing humor while studying performance at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she explains. “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. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott decided to act independently, taking the stage at amateur nights with Edebiri and posting hilarious (and very) weird comedy videos digitally. One, Baby Cult, centered on characters intensely obsessed with motherhood; a different one portrayed working at the brand Hollister as like being stuck in a horror film. By chance, she met Seligman through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the intense thriller. The big theme of her career, she explains, has been contemporaries supporting her, instead of the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, adding with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who had doubts regarding Sennott earlier will likely be kicking themselves today. Through she calls a “wild, full-circle” development, she has achieved her dream vehicle. A few years back she posted a clip named “it’s LA” online, in which she mocked film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about LA residents balancing advantages of online celebrity (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being accused of being a substance-abusing criminal, and perhaps becoming a unreliable outcast). One might easy to produce a program about online fame that was horribly idealized—or, more problematic, one that punched down at the characters. This show does neither, creating a portrait of affluent young adult living that’s candid about the chaos and the glamour.
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
