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The performer enters the online meeting and at once starts an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, seeming genuinely regretful. Although she's only slightly delayed, she needs to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Thankfully, for a writer, this is precisely what one hopes to experience. Additionally, it’s pretty unsurprising. Viewers familiar with the unapologetically openly gay and outspoken project Bottoms—which she penned with the director and featured in with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—would be aware that she has a lot to say, ranging from about roles, intimacy, or the merits of forming a teen brawl society. And, by the end the recent multi-episode HBO series I Love LA, it is clear that the star holds further insights about the struggles of young adulthood (As a millennial, Sennott is an honorary member for this generation, on the cusp with a knack for straddling different age groups).

Influences and Artistic Direction

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and Sennott is an admirer, citing the show together with the classic series, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as influences for the project, which tracks the journey of online personality Tallulah and close companion and new talent manager Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the largest presence on creative vision went to Entourage, the show focusing on an up-and-coming celebrity navigating in an often-seedy Hollywood (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott discovered it amid lockdown, became “captivated”, and decided to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.

“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she explains. The inspiration for this project came—to some extent—from personal, originally rocky, relocation to LA and from the saturn return, a much-talked-about phenomenon for enthusiasts. That period marked a phase that saw her grasp major life lessons, professionally and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she says. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Starting Out

Brought up in New England, Sennott began developing and showcasing stand-up while studying theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” 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.”

Sennott decided to act independently, taking the stage at amateur nights with her friend and uploading hysterical (and decidedly) bizarre comedy videos on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted several females obsessively drawn to having babies; another imagined working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and ended up appearing in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of Uncut Gems. A recurring idea of her journey, she explains, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, instead of the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, continuing with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Manifesting Dreams

Anyone who had doubts regarding Sennott previously will likely be kicking themselves currently. Through she describes as a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she appears to created the perfect project. A few years back she posted a video titled on LA life on the internet, in which she lampooned film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a series about LA residents balancing benefits of digital stardom (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your associate being suspected of being a substance-abusing stealer, and perhaps becoming a unreliable pariah). Some could tempting to produce a show about online fame that was horribly glamorous—or, worse, one that belittled at the characters. The series steers clear of each, creating a portrait of affluent twentysomething living that’s candid 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 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