Rachel Sennott appears on the online meeting and right away starts an explanation. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, appearing genuinely regretful. Despite being only slightly behind, she wants to clarify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, during an interview, this is just what you want to encounter. Additionally, it’s pretty unsurprising. Anyone familiar with the unapologetically LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—which she co-wrote with Emma Seligman and appeared in with her friend the talented actress—would already know that Sennott has plenty to share, be it about roles, sex, or the pros of starting a teen fight club. Plus, after watching the recent seasonal show titled I Love LA, viewers realize that the star has even more insights on the darker side of young adulthood (As a millennial, she is an honorary member to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial skilled for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and the actress admits to being an admirer, referencing it together with the HBO hit, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as influences for I Love LA, which details the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and new agent Maia. Perhaps, the most significant influence on concept was reserved for the popular sitcom, the HBO sitcom depicting a rising A-list actor making his way in an often-seedy LA scene (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it amid lockdown, became “hooked”, and decided to put her own twist 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 explains. The idea for the series emerged—partly—from firsthand, at first fractious, relocation to Los Angeles and from the saturn return, a frequently discussed phenomenon for astrology heads. It was an era that saw her grasp major life lessons, professionally and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she says. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Starting Out
Brought up in Connecticut, the star began developing and showcasing stand-up while pursuing performance at a prestigious arts school. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott seized control, performing at live shows with Edebiri and posting uproarious (and distinctly) unconventional skits on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted characters obsessively obsessed with motherhood; another envisioned being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being caught in a horror film. By chance, she connected with Seligman through NYU’s movie community and ended up starring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a funeral gathering with echoes of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her path, she explains, has been people her own age giving her a shot, instead of traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, adding with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Individuals who were skeptical regarding her earlier will surely be regretting it now. As part of she calls a “incredibly circular” development, she seems to have achieved the perfect project. Previously she shared content named “it’s LA” on social media, in which she parodied movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about Angelenos juggling the perks of digital stardom (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your client being accused of being a substance-abusing criminal, and possibly becoming a unreliable persona non grata). One might tempting to create a show about internet celebrity that was overly idealized—or, worse, one that belittled at its subjects. The series does neither, resulting in a portrait of affluent twentysomething life that’s candid about the chaos and the glamour.
Empathetic Approach
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
