Rachel Sennott enters the digital interview and at once begins an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, seeming truly apologetic. She is only slightly delayed, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, during an interview, this is precisely what one hopes to experience. Additionally, it’s pretty predictable. Viewers familiar with her unapologetically queer and unapologetically crass movie Bottoms—which she co-wrote with her creative partner and featured in with her friend Ayo Edebiri—will already know that she possesses a lot to say, ranging from about identity, sex, or the appeal of forming a high-school brawl society. Furthermore, by the end her recent seasonal program I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star carries further thoughts on the darker side of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she serves as a bridge of the gang, on the cusp with a knack for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and the actress readily acknowledges an admirer, citing the show together with the HBO hit, Insecure and the innovative program as inspirations for her series, which tracks the journey of a social media star Tallulah and her friend and fledgling talent manager portrayed by Sennott. However, the largest spot on the moodboard was reserved for the HBO series, the HBO sitcom about an emerging A-list actor navigating in a corrupt entertainment industry (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott discovered it amid the pandemic, became “captivated”, and decided to create a new version on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she explains. The inspiration for I Love LA emerged—partly—from personal, at first fractious, relocation to Los Angeles and from her astrological phase, a frequently discussed occurrence for astrology heads. It was a phase that saw her learn major insights, professionally and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Early Beginnings
Raised in Connecticut, the star began writing and performing humor while pursuing theatre 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. “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 open mics with her friend and posting hilarious (and very) unconventional skits online. One, Baby Cult, followed characters fetishistically fixated on motherhood; another envisioned being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being caught in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Seligman through NYU’s movie community and eventually featuring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a Jewish wake with hints of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her journey, she says, has been people her own age offering opportunities, rather than the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, adding amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Career Breakthrough
Individuals who had doubts regarding Sennott previously will surely be feeling foolish now. As part of she labels a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she appears to created an ideal role. Previously she uploaded a clip titled about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a series about LA residents balancing advantages of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your client being labeled as being a intoxicated criminal, and possibly becoming a unreliable pariah). Some could tempting to create a program about digital influence that was horribly idealized—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at the characters. I Love LA does neither, making for a portrait of advantaged young adult existence that’s frank about the mess and the shine.
Balanced Perspective
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
