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The star enters the digital interview and right away starts an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, sounding genuinely remorseful. Although she's only a couple of minutes behind, she wants to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, for a writer, that’s precisely what one hopes to hear. Moreover, it’s quite expected. Viewers familiar with her boldly queer and unapologetically crass movie Bottoms—which she co-wrote with her creative partner and featured in alongside close companion Ayo Edebiri—will be aware that she possesses a lot to share, whether about gender, sex, or the merits of forming a teen combat group. And, once you finish her new seasonal program titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she holds additional insights on the challenges of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, she is a relatable figure for this generation, straddling eras skilled for bridging both generations).

Influences and Creative Vision

Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being a fan, referencing it in addition to the HBO hit, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for her series, which details the journey of an influencer Tallulah and ally who is also new representative Maia. Perhaps, the most significant influence on concept went to the popular sitcom, the show focusing on a rising Hollywood star navigating in an often-seedy LA scene (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott started watching it during lockdown, became “hooked”, and chose to create a new version 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 concept for this project originated—partly—from personal, initially rocky, relocation to LA and from her cosmic event, a popular phenomenon for enthusiasts. That period marked a time that involved her grasp significant life lessons, work-wise and personally. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. It was almost like these biblical tests …”

Early Beginnings

Brought up in Connecticut, Sennott started writing and performing stand-up while enrolled in acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

Sennott decided to act independently, taking the stage at live shows with her friend and uploading hilarious (and very) bizarre comedy videos on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, followed several females intensely drawn to pregnancy; another portrayed working at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she met Emma through campus film circles and ultimately appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the intense thriller. The big theme of her journey, she notes, has been contemporaries supporting her, rather than traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she confirms, adding with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Manifesting Dreams

Anyone who had doubts about her previously will surely be regretting it currently. In what she describes as a “astonishingly complete” development, she seems to have created her dream vehicle. In 2019 she uploaded a clip called “it’s LA” on social media, in which she lampooned film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a series about Angelenos managing benefits of online celebrity (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your associate being labeled as being a drug-addled thief, and perhaps becoming a unreliable persona non grata). It would be easy to produce a series about online fame that was extremely idealized—or, more problematic, one that mocked at those depicted. The series avoids both, creating a representation of advantaged millennial life that’s frank about the chaos and the shine.

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