Rachel Sennott joins the video call and immediately starts an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, sounding truly remorseful. She is only a couple of minutes behind, she needs to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, in this context, that’s precisely what one hopes to hear. Moreover, it’s quite expected. Those who know her boldly LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—that Sennott co-wrote with her creative partner and featured in alongside her friend Ayo Edebiri—would understand that Sennott holds plenty to share, ranging from on roles, intimacy, or the appeal of creating a high-school fight club. Furthermore, by the end the recent multi-episode show I Love LA, it is clear that she has additional insights on the challenges of modern youth (Now in her thirties, she represents an honorary member of the gang, a tale-end millennial adept for bridging different age groups).
Influences and Creative Vision
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress readily acknowledges a fan, naming it in addition to the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as inspirations for I Love LA, which tracks the struggles of online personality Tallulah and her friend and aspiring representative Maia. However, the most significant presence on concept was reserved for the HBO series, the program about an emerging Hollywood star making his way in a gritty entertainment industry (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She started watching it amid lockdown, became “obsessed”, 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 notes. The inspiration for I Love LA originated—partly—from firsthand, originally fractious, move to Tinseltown and from her cosmic event, a frequently discussed phenomenon for astrology heads. This represented an era that included her grasp some big truths, work-wise and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Starting Out
Brought up in New England, the star commenced creating and acting comedy while enrolled in performance at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she explains. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
She took matters into her own hands, performing at live shows with her friend and uploading hilarious (and very) unconventional online content on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted several females fetishistically fixated on motherhood; another portrayed being employed at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being stuck in a horror film. By chance, she encountered Emma through NYU’s movie community and eventually featuring in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her journey, she says, has been people her own age supporting her, as opposed to established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, stating humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Rising Success
Those who had doubts about Sennott then will likely be kicking themselves now. Through she labels a “wild, full-circle” development, she has achieved her dream vehicle. Previously she uploaded a clip named “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she parodied movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a series about LA residents juggling benefits of internet fame (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being labeled as being a drug-addled thief, and perhaps becoming a unreliable persona non grata). It would be simple to produce a show about online fame that was horribly aspirational—or, worse, one that mocked at the characters. This show avoids both, resulting in a representation of privileged twentysomething existence that’s honest about the mess and the appeal.
Balanced Perspective
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
