Rachel Sennott appears on the video call and immediately starts an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, appearing really remorseful. She is only a couple of minutes late, she wants to clarify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Thankfully, for a writer, that’s exactly what is ideal to encounter. Moreover, it’s pretty unsurprising. Anyone who know the fearlessly openly gay and unapologetically crass movie Bottoms—that Sennott penned with her creative partner and appeared in together with her friend The Bear’s standout—would understand that she possesses much to share, be it on gender, sex, or the merits of creating a high-school combat group. And, once you finish the recent multi-episode show I Love LA, viewers realize that she holds additional insights regarding the darker side of modern youth (At 30, Sennott is an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras skilled for connecting millennials and Gen Z).
Inspirations and Artistic Direction
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and the actress admits to being an admirer, naming it in addition to Sex and the City, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as guides for the project, which tracks the journey of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and ally and fledgling talent manager Maia. Notably, the most significant spot on concept was reserved for Entourage, that program about an up-and-coming A-list actor navigating in an often-seedy entertainment industry (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She discovered it during lockdown, became “hooked”, and chose 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 concept for the series originated—in part—from personal, originally fractious, move to Tinseltown and from the cosmic event, a popular occurrence for enthusiasts. That period marked a phase that saw her understand significant life lessons, in her career 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. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Humble Origins
Raised in Connecticut, Sennott commenced creating and acting comedy while pursuing acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “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. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott decided to act independently, performing at open mics with Ayo and posting hysterical (and decidedly) unconventional online content digitally. One, titled Baby Cult, followed several females obsessively obsessed with motherhood; a different one imagined working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being stuck in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a religious event with shades of the intense thriller. The central motif of her journey, she says, has been peers offering opportunities, instead of established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, adding humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Individuals who had doubts about Sennott previously will surely be kicking themselves now. Through she describes as a “incredibly circular” development, she seems to have achieved the perfect project. In 2019 she posted content named about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she mocked movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with the co-writer) of a comedy about Angelenos juggling advantages of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a intoxicated stealer, and potentially becoming a risky persona non grata). It would be simple to make a program about digital influence that was overly glamorous—or, more problematic, one that punched down at the characters. I Love LA does neither, making for a depiction of affluent millennial existence that’s honest about the mess and the glamour.
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
