The actress and writer discussing her side-splitting show about that grotty allure of today's youth existence
The performer joins the digital interview and right away starts an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, appearing truly remorseful. Although she's only a couple of minutes delayed, she wants to justify. “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!” Thankfully, during an interview, that’s exactly what you want to hear. Additionally, it’s quite unsurprising. Those familiar with her boldly LGBTQ+ and brash movie Bottoms—which she penned with Emma Seligman and featured in together with collaborator the talented actress—would be aware that Sennott holds plenty to say, ranging from on identity, intimacy, or the pros of creating a high-school brawl society. Plus, after watching the new seasonal program titled I Love LA, it is clear that she has even more insights about the challenges of modern youth (At 30, she represents a relatable figure to younger audiences, on the cusp with a knack for bridging different age groups).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, naming the show together with Sex and the City, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as influences for the project, which details the journey of online personality Tallulah and ally and fledgling agent Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the most significant presence on creative vision went to Entourage, that HBO sitcom focusing on a rising A-list actor succeeding in a gritty entertainment industry (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She discovered it throughout the pandemic, became “captivated”, and chose 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 explains. The inspiration for this project came—partly—from firsthand, initially fractious, move to LA and from her cosmic event, a popular phenomenon for followers. That period marked an era that saw her grasp major truths, professionally and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she recalls. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Starting Out
Growing up in Connecticut, Sennott started developing and showcasing stand-up while studying acting at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She seized control, appearing at amateur nights with Ayo and uploading uproarious (and decidedly) unconventional skits digitally. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted a group of women obsessively obsessed with motherhood; a different one envisioned being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being stuck in a scary movie. Interestingly, she met Seligman through NYU’s movie community and ended up appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she explains, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, as opposed to established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, stating with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who were skeptical regarding Sennott earlier will surely be regretting it today. Through she calls a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she seems to have achieved an ideal role. In 2019 she uploaded a clip called about Los Angeles on social media, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a series about city dwellers balancing advantages of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a substance-abusing stealer, and perhaps becoming a risky outcast). It would be simple to create a show about internet celebrity that was extremely aspirational—or, more problematic, one that mocked at its subjects. The series avoids both, making for a depiction of privileged twentysomething existence that’s honest about the chaos and the shine.
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 comments. “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
