🔗 Share this article

The star appears on the video call and right away starts an explanation. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, sounding truly remorseful. She is only a bit late, she wants to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, in this context, this is just what one hopes to hear. Moreover, it’s pretty unsurprising. Those familiar with her unapologetically queer and outspoken project Bottoms—which she co-wrote with Emma Seligman and starred in together with collaborator the talented actress—will already know that she holds plenty to say, ranging from on gender, intimacy, or the appeal of forming a youth brawl society. And, by the end her latest eight-part HBO series I Love LA, it is clear that the star has even more insights on the struggles of young adulthood (At 30, Sennott is a relatable figure for this generation, on the cusp adept for straddling millennials and Gen Z).

Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction

The comparisons to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, citing the show alongside the HBO hit, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as influences for I Love LA, which tracks the journey of an influencer Tallulah and her friend who is also aspiring talent manager portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the most significant influence on creative vision was reserved for the HBO series, that program focusing on an up-and-coming celebrity succeeding in a corrupt Hollywood (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it during lockdown, became “hooked”, and resolved to create a new version 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 notes. The concept for I Love LA originated—in part—from her own, at first rocky, transition to LA and from her saturn return, a much-talked-about event for astrology heads. This represented a phase that involved her grasp significant insights, work-wise and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “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 …”

Starting Out

Raised in New England, Sennott commenced developing and showcasing comedy while studying acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. 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, appearing at live shows with Ayo and sharing hysterical (and distinctly) unconventional comedy videos online. One, Baby Cult, centered on a group of women fetishistically drawn to pregnancy; another envisioned working at the brand Hollister as akin to being trapped in a scary movie. Interestingly, she connected with Seligman through the university’s film scene and ended up appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she says, has been contemporaries supporting her, as opposed to traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, continuing humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”

Rising Success

Anyone who were skeptical about her previously will certainly be feeling foolish today. In what she describes as a “incredibly circular” story, she seems to have achieved an ideal role. A few years back she shared a clip titled about Los Angeles online, in which she mocked film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a comedy about city dwellers managing the perks of online celebrity (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being accused of being a drug-addled criminal, and potentially becoming a unreliable persona non grata). Some could tempting to make a program about internet celebrity that was overly glamorous—or, more problematic, one that mocked at its subjects. I Love LA avoids both, resulting in a representation of affluent millennial living that’s candid about the chaos and the appeal.

Nuanced Portrayal

“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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