Rachel Sennott joins the online meeting and immediately launches into an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, appearing truly regretful. She is only a bit late, she needs to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Thankfully, during an interview, that’s exactly what is ideal to hear. Additionally, it’s pretty unsurprising. Viewers who have seen the fearlessly LGBTQ+ and brash project Bottoms—which she penned with her creative partner and starred in with her friend the talented actress—would understand that Sennott holds a lot to discuss, whether about roles, relationships, or the appeal of creating a youth combat group. Plus, once you finish her latest seasonal show I Love LA, it is clear that the star carries additional insights about the darker side of modern youth (At 30, she serves as a bridge of the gang, straddling eras skilled for bridging both generations).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and Sennott is enthusiastic, naming it together with Sex and the City, Insecure and Atlanta as inspirations for her series, which follows the journey of a social media star Tallulah and close companion who is also new talent manager Sennott’s character. However, the biggest presence on the moodboard went to the HBO series, the show focusing on an emerging celebrity making his way in a gritty Hollywood (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott discovered it during lockdown, became “hooked”, and decided to put her own twist on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she explains. The idea for I Love LA emerged—partly—from her own, initially fractious, transition to Tinseltown and from the astrological phase, a much-talked-about event for followers. This represented a phase that saw her understand some big life lessons, in her career and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Starting Out
Raised in New England, Sennott started writing and performing comedy while pursuing performance 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. 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 took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at amateur nights with Edebiri and sharing hilarious (and decidedly) unconventional online content on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, depicted characters fetishistically obsessed with having babies; another envisioned being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being caught in a thriller. Interestingly, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and ultimately appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her career, she says, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, rather than established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, adding amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Rising Success
Those who questioned about Sennott earlier will surely be regretting it currently. Through she labels a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she appears to achieved her dream vehicle. A few years back she posted content named “it’s LA” online, in which she mocked film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Now, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a series about Angelenos juggling the perks of online celebrity (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your associate being labeled as being a drug-addled criminal, and possibly becoming a unreliable pariah). One might easy to produce a show about internet celebrity that was extremely idealized—or, worse, one that punched down at the characters. I Love LA avoids both, making for a depiction of advantaged twentysomething life that’s frank about the grot and the shine.
Nuanced Portrayal
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” she says. “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
