Rachel Sennott enters the digital interview and immediately launches into an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, appearing genuinely apologetic. Although she's only a couple of minutes behind, she wants to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, in this context, that’s just what is ideal to hear. Additionally, it’s quite predictable. Anyone who know the unapologetically LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass film titled Bottoms—which she penned with her creative partner and featured in with her friend Ayo Edebiri—would be aware that Sennott has much to say, whether about gender, relationships, or the merits of forming a high-school fight club. Furthermore, after watching her new eight-part program I Love LA, it is clear that the star holds even more perspectives regarding the darker side of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she is an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras with a knack for connecting different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and Sennott is a fan, naming it together with Sex and the City, Insecure and Atlanta as inspirations for the project, which tracks the journey of an influencer Tallulah and ally who is also aspiring agent Maia. Perhaps, the largest spot on creative vision was reserved for the HBO series, that program depicting an emerging celebrity navigating in a gritty entertainment industry (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott discovered it throughout lockdown, became “captivated”, and chose to add a fresh perspective on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she says. The idea for the series originated—partly—from her own, at first rocky, transition to Tinseltown and from the cosmic event, a much-talked-about phenomenon for astrology heads. That period marked a phase that involved her learn major truths, work-wise and in private life. “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 was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Growing up in the East Coast, Sennott commenced writing and performing comedy while pursuing performance at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “None of the university plays cast me either.” “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, performing at amateur nights with Edebiri and uploading uproarious (and very) unconventional online content online. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed a group of women intensely fixated on having babies; a different one imagined working at the brand Hollister as akin to being caught in a thriller. By chance, she encountered Emma through NYU’s movie community and eventually starring in her first film, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of the intense thriller. The central motif of her path, she says, has been people her own age offering opportunities, as opposed to the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, stating amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who questioned regarding Sennott then will certainly be regretting it currently. In what she calls a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she appears to created an ideal role. In 2019 she shared a clip called “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she mocked movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with the co-writer) of a series about LA residents juggling benefits of internet fame (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being accused of being a intoxicated stealer, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). One might simple to make a show about internet celebrity that was horribly aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at the characters. This show avoids both, making for a depiction of advantaged millennial existence that’s candid about the chaos and the appeal.
Balanced Perspective
“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
