Rachel Sennott appears on the video call and right away begins an explanation. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, appearing truly apologetic. She is only a bit late, she needs to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, for a writer, that’s just what is ideal to hear. Moreover, it’s fairly unsurprising. Anyone who know her unapologetically LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass film Bottoms—that she penned with the director and appeared in alongside close companion Ayo Edebiri—will understand that she has a lot to share, whether about identity, relationships, or the merits of forming a high-school brawl society. Plus, by the end her new multi-episode program I Love LA, it is clear that the star has even more insights about the struggles of Gen Z life (As a millennial, Sennott is a bridge for this generation, on the cusp with a knack for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Influences and Creative Vision
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott is enthusiastic, citing the show together with the HBO hit, Insecure and the innovative program as influences for her series, which details the travails of a social media star Tallulah and ally who is also new representative Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the biggest influence on creative vision went to Entourage, the program about a rising Hollywood star succeeding in an often-seedy LA scene (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott began viewing it amid COVID-19, became “hooked”, and chose to add a fresh perspective on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she explains. The inspiration for I Love LA came—partly—from personal, at first fractious, transition to Los Angeles and from her cosmic event, a much-talked-about event for followers. That period marked an era that included her grasp some big life lessons, professionally and individually. “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
Raised in the East Coast, the star commenced writing and performing stand-up while pursuing performance 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.” 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 seized control, performing at live shows with Edebiri and uploading hysterical (and very) bizarre comedy videos online. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted several females fetishistically obsessed with pregnancy; another portrayed working at the brand Hollister as akin to being caught in a scary movie. Interestingly, she encountered Seligman through NYU’s movie community and ended up appearing in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the intense thriller. The big theme of her path, she explains, has been people her own age offering opportunities, as opposed to traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, adding amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who were skeptical about Sennott previously will certainly be regretting it now. As part of she calls a “astonishingly complete” story, she seems to have achieved the perfect project. A few years back she uploaded a clip called about Los Angeles on social media, in which she lampooned film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a comedy about LA residents balancing benefits of internet fame (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your client being accused of being a drug-addled thief, and perhaps becoming a risky pariah). Some could easy to make a series about online fame that was horribly aspirational—or, more problematic, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA avoids both, resulting in a portrait of privileged twentysomething life that’s honest about the mess and the glamour.
Balanced Perspective
“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
