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The performer joins the online meeting and immediately starts an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, seeming really regretful. Although she's only slightly late, she wants to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, during an interview, that’s just what one hopes to hear. Besides, it’s pretty predictable. Those who know the boldly openly gay and brash movie Bottoms—that she co-wrote with her creative partner and featured in with collaborator The Bear’s standout—can be aware that Sennott has a lot to say, whether about gender, relationships, or the appeal of forming a high-school fight club. Furthermore, once you finish her latest eight-part HBO series titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star has additional perspectives regarding the darker side of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, Sennott represents an honorary member to younger audiences, straddling eras with a knack for connecting millennials and Gen Z).

Influences and Storytelling Approach

Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and the actress is a fan, referencing the show in addition to Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and the innovative program as inspirations for the project, which details the journey of online personality Tallulah and her friend and fledgling representative portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the most significant presence on the moodboard went to the popular sitcom, that program about a rising A-list actor succeeding in a corrupt entertainment industry (notable statement: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She began viewing it throughout COVID-19, became “captivated”, and chose to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.

“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The idea for this project originated—partly—from firsthand, originally rocky, move to LA and from the astrological phase, a much-talked-about event for followers. It was a phase that involved her learn major truths, work-wise and individually. “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 resembled a series of extreme challenges…”

Humble Origins

Raised in New England, Sennott began creating and acting humor while studying performance at a prestigious arts school. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” 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?”

Sennott seized control, taking the stage at live shows with her friend and sharing hilarious (and very) bizarre comedy videos online. One, titled Baby Cult, centered on a group of women intensely drawn to motherhood; another imagined being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being stuck in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Emma through the university’s film scene and eventually starring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a funeral gathering with shades of Uncut Gems. The big theme of her path, she notes, has been people her own age giving her a shot, instead of established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, continuing amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”

Manifesting Dreams

Those who had doubts regarding Sennott then will likely be regretting it now. In what she describes as a “incredibly circular” story, she seems to have created an ideal role. In 2019 she posted content called on LA life online, in which she parodied movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a show about Angelenos balancing benefits of internet fame (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being accused of being a intoxicated stealer, and potentially becoming a risky outcast). One might tempting to make a series about digital influence that was extremely aspirational—or, worse, one that punched down at its subjects. This show does neither, creating a representation of privileged twentysomething existence that’s candid about the grot and the appeal.

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 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