🔗 Share this article

Rachel Sennott joins the video call and right away launches into an explanation. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, seeming really regretful. She is only slightly delayed, she needs to clarify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, during an interview, that’s exactly what one hopes to experience. Moreover, it’s fairly predictable. Anyone who know her fearlessly queer and brash movie titled Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with Emma Seligman and appeared in with close companion Ayo Edebiri—will already know that Sennott holds a lot to say, whether on gender, relationships, or the pros of forming a youth brawl society. Plus, after watching her new multi-episode program I Love LA, it is clear that she has additional perspectives on the struggles of modern youth (At 30, she serves as an honorary member for this generation, straddling eras with a knack for connecting millennials and Gen Z).

Inspirations and Storytelling Approach

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress admits to being an admirer, referencing the show alongside the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as guides for the project, which follows the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and ally and aspiring talent manager Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the most significant spot on the moodboard belonged to Entourage, that program depicting an emerging A-list actor succeeding in a corrupt entertainment industry (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She started watching it amid the pandemic, became “captivated”, and decided to put her own twist 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 explains. The idea for this project came—partly—from personal, initially fractious, relocation to LA and from her astrological phase, a frequently discussed event for enthusiasts. It was a time that involved her understand significant insights, in her career and individually. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she admits. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. It was almost like these biblical tests …”

Humble Origins

Growing up in New England, the star began creating and acting humor while studying performance 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 says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

Sennott took matters into her own hands, appearing at live shows with Ayo and sharing uproarious (and distinctly) weird online content digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted characters fetishistically fixated on pregnancy; another envisioned working at a trendy retail outlet as like being trapped in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and eventually starring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of Uncut Gems. A recurring idea of her journey, she notes, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, rather than established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, stating amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”

Rising Success

Those who were skeptical about her earlier will likely be kicking themselves currently. In what she calls a “wild, full-circle” story, she seems to have achieved her dream vehicle. In 2019 she shared a clip titled about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about city dwellers balancing advantages of online celebrity (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your associate being labeled as being a drug-addled criminal, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). One might tempting to produce a series about internet celebrity that was overly aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at those depicted. I Love LA does neither, making for a portrait of advantaged young adult living that’s candid about the mess and the glamour.

Empathetic Approach

“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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