Rachel Sennott joins the digital interview and right away starts an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, sounding truly remorseful. Although she's only a bit behind, she wants to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s just what you want to hear. Additionally, it’s pretty expected. Viewers familiar with the unapologetically LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—which she co-wrote with Emma Seligman and starred in with her friend Ayo Edebiri—will already know that she has plenty to say, be it on roles, sex, or the pros of starting a teen brawl society. And, by the end her latest eight-part show titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star carries even more perspectives on the struggles of Gen Z life (As a millennial, she serves as a relatable figure of the gang, on the cusp with a knack for straddling different age groups).
Influences and Artistic Direction
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott readily acknowledges an admirer, referencing the show in addition to Sex and the City, Insecure and the innovative program as guides for her series, which follows the struggles of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion and new agent portrayed by Sennott. However, the most significant presence on creative vision belonged to the HBO series, that program depicting an emerging Hollywood star succeeding in a corrupt Hollywood (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She began viewing it throughout the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and resolved to create a new version on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she notes. The idea for the series emerged—partly—from her own, at first fractious, transition to Tinseltown and from the cosmic event, a much-talked-about occurrence for followers. It was a phase that included her understand some big life lessons, work-wise and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Early Beginnings
Raised in the East Coast, the star started writing and performing humor while pursuing theatre 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. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She seized control, taking the stage at live shows with Ayo and posting hilarious (and decidedly) unconventional comedy videos online. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed a group of women fetishistically fixated on motherhood; another portrayed being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being stuck in a thriller. By chance, she encountered Seligman through the university’s film scene and ultimately featuring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a religious event with shades of Uncut Gems. The big theme of her journey, she explains, has been peers supporting her, rather than traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, stating with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who were skeptical about her previously will surely be feeling foolish currently. Through she calls a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she seems to have created her dream vehicle. A few years back she uploaded content named on LA life on social media, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a series about Angelenos balancing the perks of internet fame (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your associate being suspected of being a substance-abusing stealer, and possibly becoming a risky outcast). It would be simple to make a show about digital influence that was horribly glamorous—or, more problematic, one that punched down at the characters. This show steers clear of each, resulting in a portrait of privileged millennial living that’s candid about the chaos and the glamour.
Empathetic Approach
“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
