Rachel Sennott appears on the online meeting and immediately begins an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, seeming genuinely apologetic. Despite being only a couple of minutes delayed, she wants to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, for a writer, this is precisely what is ideal to experience. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Viewers who know the fearlessly openly gay and outspoken project titled Bottoms—that Sennott co-wrote with Emma Seligman and starred in with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—would be aware that Sennott possesses plenty to share, be it on roles, sex, or the pros of creating a high-school combat group. Plus, by the end the recent eight-part HBO series titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star carries even more insights on the challenges of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, Sennott is an honorary member to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial adept for bridging both generations).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and Sennott admits to being a fan, naming it in addition to Sex and the City, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for her series, which details the struggles of online personality Tallulah and her friend and fledgling agent Maia. However, the largest presence on concept was reserved for the HBO series, that program depicting an up-and-coming A-list actor making his way in a corrupt Hollywood (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She discovered it throughout lockdown, became “obsessed”, and chose to add a fresh perspective on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she explains. The inspiration for I Love LA originated—partly—from her own, originally fractious, transition to LA and from the cosmic event, a popular phenomenon for enthusiasts. It was a time that included her understand significant insights, professionally and personally. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Starting Out
Growing up in the East Coast, Sennott started writing and performing stand-up while studying acting at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott decided to act independently, performing at live shows with Edebiri and uploading uproarious (and very) weird comedy videos digitally. One, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females intensely fixated on having babies; another imagined being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being caught in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Emma through the university’s film scene and eventually appearing in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a Jewish wake with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her path, she notes, has been contemporaries supporting her, rather than traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, adding humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who questioned about Sennott earlier will certainly be feeling foolish today. As part of she calls a “wild, full-circle” development, she has created the perfect project. A few years back she uploaded content titled about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a show about Angelenos balancing benefits of internet fame (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a intoxicated thief, and perhaps becoming a unreliable persona non grata). One might tempting to make a series about online fame that was horribly aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at the characters. I Love LA does neither, creating a depiction of advantaged twentysomething life that’s frank about the mess and the shine.
Balanced Perspective
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
