🔗 Share this article

Rachel Sennott enters the video call and right away starts an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, sounding genuinely remorseful. She is only a bit late, she needs to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, during an interview, this is precisely what you want to encounter. Besides, it’s fairly predictable. Anyone who have seen her boldly queer and outspoken movie Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with Emma Seligman and appeared in alongside close companion the talented actress—can already know that Sennott possesses plenty to discuss, be it on roles, sex, or the merits of starting a teen combat group. Furthermore, after watching her latest seasonal HBO series titled I Love LA, it is clear that she carries further insights on the struggles of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, she serves as a relatable figure of the gang, a tale-end millennial with a knack for straddling millennials and Gen Z).

Influences and Artistic Direction

Parallels to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and Sennott is enthusiastic, citing the show together with the classic series, Insecure and Atlanta as influences for I Love LA, which follows the struggles of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also aspiring agent portrayed by Sennott. However, the largest influence on the moodboard belonged to the popular sitcom, the HBO sitcom about an emerging celebrity navigating in a corrupt LA scene (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott discovered it amid COVID-19, became “hooked”, and decided to add a fresh perspective on it “for the girls and the gays”.

“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she says. The idea for I Love LA came—in part—from her own, originally fractious, move to Los Angeles and from her astrological phase, a popular phenomenon for enthusiasts. This represented an era that saw her grasp major insights, in her career and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “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

Raised in New England, the star started writing and performing comedy while studying theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “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 took matters into her own hands, appearing at amateur nights with Ayo and posting uproarious (and distinctly) unconventional online content on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, centered on characters intensely fixated on pregnancy; another portrayed working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being caught in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her career, she says, has been peers offering opportunities, instead of traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, stating amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”

Manifesting Dreams

Individuals who questioned about her then will certainly be regretting it currently. As part of she calls a “incredibly circular” story, she has created her dream vehicle. Previously she uploaded content called about Los Angeles online, in which she parodied movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a series about Angelenos juggling benefits of internet fame (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your client being suspected of being a substance-abusing criminal, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). It would be tempting to create a series about internet celebrity that was horribly aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that mocked at its subjects. The series steers clear of each, resulting in a depiction of advantaged young adult existence that’s frank about the mess and the shine.

Empathetic Approach

“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” she says. “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