Rachel Sennott joins the online meeting and right away begins an explanation. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, sounding really regretful. Despite being only slightly behind, she wants to justify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Fortunately, in this context, that’s exactly what you want to encounter. Besides, it’s pretty unsurprising. Those who have seen her fearlessly openly gay and brash project Bottoms—that Sennott penned with her creative partner and starred in with close companion Ayo Edebiri—will be aware that Sennott holds plenty to say, be it about roles, intimacy, or the merits of starting a high-school combat group. Furthermore, after watching the new seasonal HBO series I Love LA, it is clear that she carries additional insights about the struggles of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she serves as an honorary member of the gang, on the cusp adept for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and the actress is an admirer, naming the show alongside Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Donald Glover’s series as influences for the project, which follows the struggles of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also new agent Maia. However, the most significant influence on the moodboard belonged to the popular sitcom, that program focusing on an emerging Hollywood star navigating in a corrupt Hollywood (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She started watching it throughout lockdown, became “captivated”, and decided to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she notes. The idea for I Love LA came—partly—from firsthand, initially fractious, relocation to Tinseltown and from her cosmic event, a much-talked-about occurrence for followers. This represented a time that included her learn some big insights, in her career and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “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…”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in the East Coast, the star started developing and showcasing comedy while pursuing theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She took matters into her own hands, performing at live shows with Ayo and posting hysterical (and distinctly) unconventional comedy videos on the internet. One, Baby Cult, depicted several females intensely obsessed with pregnancy; a different one imagined being employed at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being stuck in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she met Emma through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her journey, she says, has been peers offering opportunities, instead of the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, continuing humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who had doubts regarding her previously will likely be kicking themselves currently. As part of she calls a “incredibly circular” development, she has achieved an ideal role. A few years back she posted content 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 her partner) of a comedy about city dwellers balancing advantages of online celebrity (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your friend being labeled as being a intoxicated stealer, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). Some could tempting to create a show about digital influence that was horribly idealized—or, more problematic, one that punched down at its subjects. The series avoids both, making for a depiction of privileged twentysomething living that’s honest about the mess and the appeal.
Empathetic Approach
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” 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
