Rachel Sennott appears on the digital interview and right away launches into an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, seeming truly apologetic. Although she's only a bit behind, she feels compelled to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, for a writer, this is just what one hopes to encounter. Besides, it’s quite expected. Viewers familiar with the boldly openly gay and brash film Bottoms—that she penned with her creative partner and starred in with her friend Ayo Edebiri—will already know that she holds much to discuss, be it about identity, sex, or the merits of starting a teen combat group. And, once you finish her latest multi-episode show titled I Love LA, it is clear that she holds additional perspectives on the struggles of modern youth (Now in her thirties, she is an honorary member for this generation, a tale-end millennial adept for straddling different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress readily acknowledges enthusiastic, naming it together with the HBO hit, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as influences for I Love LA, which details the struggles of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and new representative portrayed by Sennott. However, the biggest spot on the moodboard belonged to Entourage, that show about an emerging celebrity succeeding in a gritty entertainment industry (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She discovered it during the pandemic, became “captivated”, and chose to create a new version on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she says. The inspiration for I Love LA emerged—to some extent—from personal, initially rocky, move to Tinseltown and from the cosmic event, a frequently discussed phenomenon for astrology heads. That period marked a phase that saw her learn major truths, work-wise and personally. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” 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…”
Early Beginnings
Growing up in Connecticut, Sennott began developing and showcasing stand-up while pursuing performance at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She seized control, taking the stage at amateur nights with her friend and uploading hilarious (and very) weird skits on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, centered on several females fetishistically obsessed with motherhood; another imagined being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being caught in a scary movie. By chance, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her journey, she explains, has been people her own age supporting her, instead of the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, continuing humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who questioned about Sennott then will surely be regretting it now. In what she calls a “wild, full-circle” story, she appears to created her dream vehicle. Previously she shared a clip named “it’s LA” online, in which she lampooned film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a series about Angelenos juggling advantages of internet fame (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your associate being accused of being a substance-abusing criminal, and potentially becoming a unreliable pariah). Some could tempting to produce a series about online fame that was overly idealized—or, more problematic, one that belittled at those depicted. This show does neither, making for a representation of privileged millennial 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 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
