Rachel Sennott enters the digital interview and at once launches into an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, seeming really remorseful. Despite being only a couple of minutes delayed, she needs to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. 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 encounter. Besides, it’s quite unsurprising. Anyone who know the boldly queer and outspoken film titled Bottoms—that Sennott collaborated on with the director and starred in alongside close companion Ayo Edebiri—can understand that she has much to say, ranging from about gender, intimacy, or the appeal of forming a high-school fight club. Plus, by the end her recent multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, it is clear that she has further insights about the darker side of young adulthood (As a millennial, Sennott serves as an honorary member for this generation, a tale-end millennial with a knack for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Inspirations and Creative Vision
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and Sennott is an admirer, citing the show together with the classic series, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as influences for I Love LA, which tracks the travails of an influencer Tallulah and her friend and aspiring talent manager portrayed by Sennott. However, the largest influence on concept was reserved for the HBO series, the program about a rising A-list actor navigating in a gritty LA scene (choice quote: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott discovered it throughout COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and decided to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she says. The inspiration for this project originated—in part—from her own, at first rocky, move to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a frequently discussed occurrence for enthusiasts. It was an era that saw her understand major insights, in her career and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” 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 the East Coast, the star commenced writing and performing humor while enrolled in theatre 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. “None of the university plays cast me either.” And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She seized control, appearing at live shows with her friend and uploading uproarious (and very) unconventional skits online. A particular video, Baby Cult, centered on characters obsessively fixated on pregnancy; another portrayed being employed at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being caught in a scary movie. Interestingly, she encountered Seligman through NYU’s movie community and eventually appearing in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her journey, she says, has been people her own age offering opportunities, as opposed to the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, adding amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Rising Success
Those who had doubts about Sennott then will likely be feeling foolish currently. As part of she labels a “incredibly circular” story, she seems to have achieved the perfect project. Previously she shared a video called on LA life on social media, in which she lampooned film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a show about LA residents balancing benefits of internet fame (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a intoxicated stealer, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). One might easy to create a show about online fame that was overly aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at those depicted. I Love LA does neither, creating a portrait of affluent millennial life that’s candid about the mess and the shine.
Empathetic Approach
“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
