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The star enters the video call and immediately starts an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, sounding truly regretful. Despite being only a couple of minutes late, she wants to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, for a writer, this is precisely what you want to experience. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Viewers familiar with the boldly queer and brash movie Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with the director and appeared in together with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—will already know that Sennott holds much to discuss, be it on gender, intimacy, or the appeal of starting a youth brawl society. And, after watching her new multi-episode program I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she holds further thoughts on the darker side of modern youth (Now in her thirties, she represents a relatable figure to younger audiences, on the cusp with a knack for connecting millennials and Gen Z).

Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction

Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being a fan, citing it together with the classic series, Insecure and the innovative program as influences for the project, which details the travails of online personality Tallulah and her friend and new agent Maia. Notably, the most significant presence on creative vision belonged to the HBO series, that show about a rising Hollywood star making his way in an often-seedy LA scene (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott discovered it during lockdown, became “obsessed”, and decided to add a fresh perspective 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 notes. The inspiration for this project originated—to some extent—from personal, at first rocky, relocation to Los Angeles and from her astrological phase, a much-talked-about event for enthusiasts. This represented an era that saw her grasp major truths, work-wise and in private life. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. It was almost like these biblical tests …”

Humble Origins

Raised in Connecticut, the star began creating and acting humor while enrolled in performance at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she explains. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “None of the university plays cast me either.” “I wondered why I was even there at all.”

Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at amateur nights with Ayo and sharing uproarious (and distinctly) weird skits on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted characters fetishistically drawn to pregnancy; another portrayed being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being stuck in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Seligman through NYU’s movie community and ended up appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a religious event with echoes of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her path, she notes, has been peers supporting her, as opposed to established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, continuing humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”

Manifesting Dreams

Individuals who had doubts about her earlier will likely be kicking themselves now. In what she labels a “astonishingly complete” development, she seems to have manifested an ideal role. Previously she posted a video called “it’s LA” online, in which she mocked Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a show about LA residents managing benefits of internet fame (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a drug-addled criminal, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). It would be simple to make a program about online fame that was extremely aspirational—or, more problematic, one that punched down at its subjects. This show does neither, resulting in a depiction of advantaged millennial life that’s honest about the chaos and the appeal.

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 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