The performer enters the video call and at once starts an explanation. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, sounding truly apologetic. Although she's only a bit delayed, she feels compelled to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, in this context, that’s exactly what one hopes to encounter. Besides, it’s pretty unsurprising. Those familiar with her fearlessly LGBTQ+ and outspoken film Bottoms—that Sennott penned with Emma Seligman and starred in with close companion The Bear’s standout—can already know that Sennott has a lot to discuss, be it about gender, sex, or the merits of starting a high-school fight club. And, once you finish her new multi-episode program I Love LA, viewers realize that she has further insights about the challenges of modern youth (At 30, she represents a relatable figure for this generation, a tale-end millennial adept for connecting both generations).
Influences and Artistic Direction
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and the actress admits to being a fan, referencing it alongside the HBO hit, the acclaimed comedy and the innovative program as influences for the project, which details the journey of a social media star Tallulah and her friend who is also aspiring talent manager Maia. Perhaps, the largest influence on creative vision went to Entourage, that HBO sitcom about a rising Hollywood star succeeding in a corrupt LA scene (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott began viewing it during the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and decided 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 explains. The inspiration for the series came—to some extent—from personal, initially rocky, transition to LA and from her saturn return, a popular phenomenon for astrology heads. It was an era that included her understand significant life lessons, work-wise and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she says. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Starting Out
Raised in Connecticut, Sennott began developing and showcasing humor while studying theatre at a prestigious arts school. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She decided to act independently, appearing at amateur nights with Edebiri and uploading hilarious (and very) bizarre online content digitally. One, Baby Cult, depicted a group of women intensely fixated on pregnancy; a different one envisioned being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being caught in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Emma through NYU’s movie community and ultimately featuring 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 journey, she notes, has been peers supporting her, instead of established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, stating humorously: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Rising Success
Individuals who had doubts about her then will likely be feeling foolish now. In what she calls a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she has created the perfect project. A few years back she posted a video called on LA life on social media, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a comedy about Angelenos juggling advantages of internet fame (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being suspected of being a substance-abusing thief, and perhaps becoming a unreliable outcast). One might tempting to produce a show about online fame that was overly idealized—or, worse, one that punched down at the characters. I Love LA steers clear of each, creating a depiction of privileged twentysomething existence that’s frank about the grot and the appeal.
Balanced Perspective
“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
