The performer enters the digital interview and at once starts an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, sounding truly regretful. She is only a bit delayed, she feels compelled to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Thankfully, in this context, that’s just what one hopes to hear. Besides, it’s quite expected. Anyone familiar with her boldly queer and brash project titled Bottoms—that she penned with her creative partner and appeared in alongside close companion Ayo Edebiri—would understand that Sennott has much to share, ranging from about roles, sex, or the merits of starting a teen fight club. Furthermore, once you finish her new eight-part HBO series titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star carries further thoughts about the darker side of modern youth (As a millennial, Sennott serves as a relatable figure of the gang, a tale-end millennial with a knack for connecting different age groups).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being an admirer, naming the show in addition to the classic series, the acclaimed comedy and the innovative program as guides for her series, which tracks the struggles of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also aspiring talent manager Sennott’s character. Notably, the biggest influence on the moodboard belonged to the popular sitcom, the program depicting an emerging A-list actor making his way in a corrupt Hollywood (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She began viewing it amid the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and chose to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she says. The inspiration for this project came—in part—from firsthand, originally fractious, relocation to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a popular phenomenon for astrology heads. It was a time that involved her learn major truths, professionally and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Humble Origins
Raised in Connecticut, Sennott started writing and performing comedy while studying theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at open mics with her friend and uploading hysterical (and decidedly) bizarre comedy videos on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, centered on a group of women fetishistically obsessed with pregnancy; a different one portrayed working at the brand Hollister as akin to being trapped in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through NYU’s movie community and ended up featuring in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she notes, has been peers offering opportunities, as opposed to the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, continuing amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”
Rising Success
Anyone who were skeptical about Sennott previously will surely be regretting it now. In what she describes as a “incredibly circular” development, she appears to manifested the perfect project. A few years back she posted content titled about Los Angeles online, in which she mocked film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about city dwellers managing the perks of digital stardom (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being suspected of being a intoxicated stealer, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). It would be easy to make a show about online fame that was extremely idealized—or, more problematic, one that mocked at its subjects. The series steers clear of each, creating a depiction of advantaged young adult life that’s candid 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 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
