Rachel Sennott enters the video call and right away begins an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, sounding truly apologetic. She is only a couple of minutes delayed, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Fortunately, for a writer, that’s just what one hopes to experience. Additionally, it’s quite predictable. Anyone who have seen her unapologetically LGBTQ+ and brash movie titled Bottoms—which she collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in alongside close companion Ayo Edebiri—can already know that Sennott possesses a lot to discuss, whether on identity, intimacy, or the merits of forming a youth brawl society. Plus, once you finish her recent multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, it is clear that she holds additional thoughts on the challenges of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, she serves as a relatable figure of the gang, straddling eras skilled for connecting different age groups).
Influences and Artistic Direction
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress is an admirer, referencing it in addition to Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for her series, which details the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also aspiring talent manager Maia. However, the largest spot on concept belonged to the popular sitcom, the program depicting an emerging Hollywood star navigating in a corrupt LA scene (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott began viewing it throughout COVID-19, became “hooked”, and decided to add a fresh perspective 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 concept for I Love LA emerged—in part—from personal, at first fractious, move to Tinseltown and from the astrological phase, a much-talked-about occurrence for astrology heads. It was a phase that involved her learn significant life lessons, work-wise and personally. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Raised in Connecticut, the star started writing and performing humor while enrolled in 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 explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. 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, taking the stage at open mics with Edebiri and sharing uproarious (and distinctly) bizarre skits online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed characters intensely drawn to motherhood; a different one portrayed being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being caught in a horror film. Interestingly, she met Seligman through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the intense thriller. The big theme of her career, she explains, has been people her own age supporting her, as opposed to traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, adding humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who questioned regarding Sennott previously will surely be regretting it currently. In what she labels a “astonishingly complete” development, she appears to achieved an ideal role. A few years back she shared content named “it’s LA” on social media, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with the co-writer) of a comedy about LA residents balancing advantages of internet fame (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your friend being labeled as being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a risky persona non grata). One might easy to make a series about digital influence that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that belittled at those depicted. I Love LA avoids both, creating a representation of advantaged twentysomething living that’s honest about the chaos and the shine.
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 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
