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The star joins the digital interview and at once starts an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, sounding genuinely regretful. Despite being only slightly late, she feels compelled to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, in this context, this is exactly what is ideal to hear. Besides, it’s fairly predictable. Anyone familiar with the fearlessly openly gay and unapologetically crass movie Bottoms—that Sennott penned with her creative partner and appeared in together with her friend The Bear’s standout—would already know that she holds a lot to share, be it about identity, relationships, or the pros of starting a youth combat group. Furthermore, once you finish her latest eight-part program titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she holds even more insights about the challenges of modern youth (As a millennial, Sennott represents a relatable figure for this generation, on the cusp with a knack for bridging different age groups).

Inspirations and Artistic Direction

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and the actress admits to being an admirer, referencing it in addition to Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for I Love LA, which tracks the struggles of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also aspiring talent manager Maia. Notably, the most significant presence on the moodboard went to the popular sitcom, that HBO sitcom about an up-and-coming celebrity navigating in a corrupt Hollywood (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She started watching it during lockdown, became “hooked”, and chose to put her own twist on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.

“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she notes. The idea for the series came—in part—from personal, at first rocky, relocation to Los Angeles and from the astrological phase, a popular phenomenon for astrology heads. This represented an era that included her grasp significant insights, professionally and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. It was almost like these biblical tests …”

Humble Origins

Raised in the East Coast, Sennott commenced creating and acting comedy while enrolled in performance at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she explains. “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. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”

She took matters into her own hands, performing at open mics with her friend and posting uproarious (and distinctly) weird online content digitally. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted a group of women obsessively drawn to having babies; a different one imagined being employed at a trendy retail outlet as like being stuck in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through the university’s film scene and eventually appearing in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her path, she says, has been people her own age offering opportunities, as opposed to established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, stating with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”

Manifesting Dreams

Anyone who were skeptical about her then will likely be kicking themselves currently. Through she labels a “wild, full-circle” development, she appears to achieved her dream vehicle. In 2019 she posted content called “it’s LA” on social media, in which she mocked Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a series about LA residents managing advantages of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a intoxicated criminal, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). It would be easy to create a program about internet celebrity that was horribly aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA steers clear of each, making for a portrait of advantaged millennial life that’s honest about the chaos and the shine.

Balanced Perspective

“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