The actress and writer discussing the side-splitting show about that grotty glamour of younger generation life
The performer joins the online meeting and immediately starts an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, appearing genuinely regretful. Despite being only a bit delayed, she feels compelled to clarify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, in this context, that’s exactly what one hopes to hear. Moreover, it’s pretty expected. Viewers who know the unapologetically LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass film Bottoms—that Sennott collaborated on with her creative partner and featured in together with her friend the talented actress—will understand that she holds much to share, whether about roles, intimacy, or the merits of forming a youth brawl society. And, once you finish the new eight-part program I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star has further thoughts on the struggles of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, Sennott is a relatable figure of the gang, a tale-end millennial with a knack for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Inspirations and Storytelling Approach
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and the actress readily acknowledges a fan, citing it alongside Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as inspirations for the project, which details the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and ally and fledgling talent manager portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the most significant presence on concept belonged to the HBO series, that program focusing on an emerging celebrity succeeding in a corrupt Hollywood (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She began viewing it during COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and chose to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she notes. The inspiration for I Love LA originated—to some extent—from her own, at first fractious, relocation to Tinseltown and from the saturn return, a frequently discussed event for astrology heads. This represented a time that saw her grasp major truths, in her career and personally. “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. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in New England, the star started developing and showcasing comedy while studying performance 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. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
She seized control, taking the stage at amateur nights with Edebiri and posting uproarious (and very) weird comedy videos digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted several females obsessively obsessed with motherhood; a different one imagined working at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being trapped in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and ended up appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a Jewish wake with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her path, she explains, has been people her own age offering opportunities, rather than established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, stating with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Individuals who were skeptical regarding her previously will certainly be kicking themselves today. In what she calls a “astonishingly complete” development, she appears to manifested her dream vehicle. In 2019 she posted a clip titled “it’s LA” online, in which she parodied movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a series about city dwellers balancing benefits of digital stardom (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being labeled as being a intoxicated criminal, and possibly becoming a unreliable persona non grata). One might tempting to create a series about online fame that was extremely aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at the characters. I Love LA does neither, making for a portrait of affluent young adult living that’s candid about the chaos and the glamour.
Nuanced Portrayal
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” she observes. “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