Rachel Sennott enters the digital interview and immediately begins an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, seeming truly apologetic. Although she's only a couple of minutes delayed, she wants to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Thankfully, during an interview, this is exactly what is ideal to hear. Besides, it’s pretty expected. Viewers familiar with her fearlessly LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—that she penned with Emma Seligman and appeared in together with close companion the talented actress—can be aware that she has a lot to say, be it about gender, relationships, or the merits of creating a high-school fight club. Plus, after watching the recent eight-part program titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star holds further perspectives on the darker side of young adulthood (At 30, Sennott represents a bridge to younger audiences, straddling eras with a knack for bridging both generations).
Inspirations and Storytelling Approach
Parallels to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and Sennott admits to being a fan, referencing the show together with the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as guides for the project, which tracks the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also new talent manager Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the largest influence on the moodboard was reserved for Entourage, the program focusing on a rising A-list actor making his way in an often-seedy entertainment industry (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott discovered it amid lockdown, became “captivated”, and chose to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she notes. The idea for the series came—in part—from her own, originally fractious, transition to Los Angeles and from her astrological phase, a frequently discussed occurrence for followers. This represented a time that involved her grasp significant truths, work-wise and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Growing up in Connecticut, the star started creating and acting comedy while enrolled in theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott seized control, taking the stage at live shows with her friend and uploading uproarious (and very) bizarre skits online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females fetishistically fixated on motherhood; a different one portrayed working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being stuck in a thriller. Interestingly, she connected with Emma through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a religious event with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her journey, she says, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, instead of established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she repeats, stating with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Rising Success
Anyone who questioned about her then will likely be feeling foolish currently. Through she describes as a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she appears to manifested her dream vehicle. In 2019 she uploaded content called “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a series about Angelenos juggling benefits of internet fame (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a drug-addled thief, and possibly becoming a unreliable pariah). Some could tempting to make a series about online fame that was extremely glamorous—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at its subjects. I Love LA avoids both, resulting in a portrait of privileged millennial existence that’s frank about the mess and the shine.
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
