Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and right away launches into an explanation. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, sounding genuinely regretful. She is only a couple of minutes behind, she wants to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, in this context, this is just what you want to experience. Additionally, it’s quite expected. Anyone familiar with her boldly LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass movie Bottoms—which she co-wrote with Emma Seligman and featured in together with collaborator The Bear’s standout—would be aware that she holds a lot to say, be it about roles, intimacy, or the merits of forming a teen fight club. Plus, by the end the latest seasonal show titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star carries further perspectives regarding the challenges of Gen Z life (As a millennial, she serves as an honorary member to younger audiences, on the cusp adept for bridging different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being a fan, naming it together with the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as inspirations for the project, which follows the travails of online personality Tallulah and ally and new representative Maia. Notably, the largest spot on concept was reserved for the popular sitcom, the show depicting a rising Hollywood star succeeding in a gritty entertainment industry (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She began viewing it throughout 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 says. The inspiration for this project emerged—partly—from personal, originally rocky, move to LA and from the cosmic event, a popular occurrence for enthusiasts. That period marked an era that included her understand significant life lessons, in her career and in private life. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she admits. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Growing up in the East Coast, Sennott started developing and showcasing comedy while enrolled in acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “None of the university plays cast me either.” And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott decided to act independently, performing at live shows with her friend and uploading uproarious (and decidedly) weird skits online. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed a group of women fetishistically fixated on pregnancy; another imagined working at the brand Hollister as akin to being stuck in a horror film. Interestingly, she encountered Emma through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a Jewish wake with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her path, she explains, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, instead of traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, adding with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”
Rising Success
Those who had doubts about her earlier will certainly be feeling foolish today. As part of she describes as a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she has created an ideal role. Previously she posted a video titled about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a show about Angelenos balancing advantages of internet fame (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your associate being suspected of being a drug-addled stealer, and possibly becoming a unreliable persona non grata). One might simple to create a show about online fame that was overly idealized—or, more problematic, one that punched down at its subjects. I Love LA avoids both, resulting in a depiction of privileged young adult living that’s frank about the mess and the appeal.
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 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
