Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and immediately launches into an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, sounding truly regretful. Although she's only a couple of minutes delayed, she wants to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, during an interview, that’s exactly what you want to experience. Additionally, it’s fairly unsurprising. Viewers familiar with her unapologetically openly gay and brash film Bottoms—which Sennott penned with Emma Seligman and starred in alongside collaborator the talented actress—would understand that she possesses plenty to say, ranging from on gender, relationships, or the pros of forming a high-school brawl society. And, after watching her new seasonal HBO series I Love LA, it is clear that she holds further insights regarding the struggles of young adulthood (At 30, she is an honorary member to younger audiences, straddling eras adept for connecting both generations).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Parallels to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and Sennott is enthusiastic, citing it together with the classic series, Insecure and the innovative program as inspirations for I Love LA, which follows the travails of an influencer Tallulah and close companion and aspiring agent Maia. However, the largest influence on the moodboard went to the popular sitcom, the program about a rising Hollywood star succeeding in a gritty entertainment industry (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it amid the pandemic, became “captivated”, and decided to create a new version 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 inspiration for the series came—partly—from firsthand, initially rocky, move to LA and from the cosmic event, a frequently discussed phenomenon for followers. This represented a time that saw her learn some big truths, in her career and personally. “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. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Brought up in Connecticut, Sennott started creating and acting humor while pursuing theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott seized control, appearing at open mics with Ayo and posting hilarious (and decidedly) weird online content online. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted a group of women intensely drawn to motherhood; another envisioned being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she encountered Seligman through the university’s film scene and ended up appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her path, she notes, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, rather than traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, continuing humorously: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Rising Success
Those who were skeptical about her earlier will certainly be regretting it currently. Through she labels a “incredibly circular” development, she has manifested the perfect project. A few years back she uploaded content titled “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a series about LA residents managing advantages of internet fame (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your friend being accused of being a intoxicated thief, and potentially becoming a risky persona non grata). One might simple to create a show about internet celebrity that was extremely glamorous—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at its subjects. This show avoids both, resulting in a representation of affluent twentysomething life that’s honest about the chaos and the appeal.
Empathetic Approach
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
