Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and immediately starts an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, seeming really regretful. She is only a couple of minutes delayed, she wants to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Fortunately, during an interview, that’s exactly what you want to encounter. Additionally, it’s pretty expected. Those familiar with her fearlessly openly gay and brash project Bottoms—which she collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in with close companion Ayo Edebiri—would understand that Sennott holds much to discuss, be it about roles, relationships, or the merits of starting a youth fight club. And, after watching her latest multi-episode show titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she has even more thoughts regarding the darker side of young adulthood (As a millennial, she represents an honorary member for this generation, on the cusp adept for connecting different age groups).
Influences and Artistic Direction
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress admits to being enthusiastic, referencing the show together with Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and the innovative program as inspirations for I Love LA, which tracks the travails of a social media star Tallulah and her friend and new agent Sennott’s character. Notably, the largest presence on creative vision belonged to the popular sitcom, that program depicting an up-and-coming A-list actor navigating in an often-seedy LA scene (notable statement: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She started watching it throughout lockdown, became “hooked”, and chose to put her own twist 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 idea for this project came—partly—from personal, originally fractious, transition to LA and from her cosmic event, a frequently discussed event for astrology heads. It was an era that involved her grasp some big insights, in her career and in private life. “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 was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Growing up in New England, the star started creating and acting comedy while studying theatre at a prestigious arts school. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
She decided to act independently, performing at open mics with Edebiri and uploading hilarious (and decidedly) unconventional skits on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, depicted several females obsessively obsessed with having babies; another portrayed being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being trapped in a horror film. Interestingly, she connected with Emma through the university’s film scene and eventually starring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a religious event with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her path, she says, has been peers offering opportunities, instead of traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, continuing amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Rising Success
Anyone who were skeptical about Sennott previously will likely be regretting it now. Through she calls a “wild, full-circle” development, she seems to have achieved the perfect project. A few years back she shared content titled “it’s LA” on social media, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a series about LA residents balancing the perks of digital stardom (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being suspected of being a substance-abusing stealer, and perhaps becoming a unreliable outcast). Some could easy to produce a series about digital influence that was overly glamorous—or, more problematic, one that punched down at its subjects. The series does neither, creating a portrait of affluent young adult life that’s candid about the chaos 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
