The performer joins the online meeting and immediately begins an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, appearing truly regretful. She is only a bit behind, she needs to justify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, for a writer, this is exactly what is ideal to encounter. Besides, it’s fairly predictable. Anyone who know the unapologetically queer and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—which she collaborated on with the director and appeared in alongside collaborator Ayo Edebiri—will be aware that Sennott holds a lot to share, be it about identity, sex, or the appeal of creating a high-school fight club. And, after watching the recent seasonal HBO series titled I Love LA, it is clear that she carries additional insights on the struggles of Gen Z life (At 30, she serves as an honorary member for this generation, a tale-end millennial with a knack for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and the actress readily acknowledges an admirer, referencing the show in addition to Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as guides for her series, which tracks the journey of an influencer Tallulah and her friend who is also fledgling talent manager Sennott’s character. However, the most significant spot on concept belonged to the HBO series, that show about an emerging Hollywood star navigating in an often-seedy LA scene (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She discovered it amid COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and resolved to put her own twist 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 notes. The inspiration for this project came—to some extent—from her own, at first fractious, transition to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a frequently discussed occurrence for followers. That period marked an era that saw her grasp significant truths, work-wise and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Growing up in New England, Sennott began developing and showcasing stand-up while enrolled in theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. 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 seized control, appearing at live shows with Ayo and posting uproarious (and very) weird online content digitally. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed a group of women fetishistically fixated on pregnancy; a different one portrayed being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being trapped in a scary movie. By chance, she encountered Emma through campus film circles and ended up featuring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a religious event with hints of Uncut Gems. A recurring idea of her path, she says, has been contemporaries supporting her, rather than the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, continuing with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who questioned about her earlier will certainly be feeling foolish now. Through she calls a “astonishingly complete” story, she seems to have created the perfect project. A few years back she posted a clip titled on LA life online, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a comedy about Angelenos balancing the perks of online celebrity (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your associate being suspected of being a intoxicated criminal, and potentially becoming a unreliable persona non grata). It would be tempting to make a series about internet celebrity that was horribly idealized—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at its subjects. The series avoids both, resulting in a representation of privileged millennial existence that’s candid about the mess and the glamour.
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
