Rachel Sennott appears on the digital interview and immediately starts an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, seeming genuinely regretful. Despite being only slightly behind, she wants to explain. “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 one hopes to hear. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Those who know the unapologetically queer and outspoken project titled Bottoms—that she co-wrote with her creative partner and starred in with close companion The Bear’s standout—would understand that she holds much to say, whether about gender, relationships, or the merits of creating a high-school fight club. And, by the end her recent multi-episode program titled I Love LA, viewers realize that the star carries additional insights about the darker side of modern youth (At 30, Sennott represents a bridge for this generation, straddling eras skilled for straddling different age groups).
Inspirations and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and the actress admits to being an admirer, naming it alongside Sex and the City, Insecure and the innovative program as inspirations for her series, which tracks the travails of an influencer Tallulah and ally and new talent manager Sennott’s character. Notably, the most significant spot on the moodboard belonged to the HBO series, the program depicting an emerging A-list actor succeeding in an often-seedy entertainment industry (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott began viewing it throughout COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and decided to create a new version on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she explains. The concept for I Love LA came—partly—from personal, initially difficult, move to Los Angeles and from her cosmic event, a much-talked-about occurrence for followers. It was a phase that involved her understand major insights, professionally and personally. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in Connecticut, Sennott commenced writing and performing stand-up while pursuing acting at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she says. “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 seized control, taking the stage at amateur nights with her friend and uploading hysterical (and distinctly) weird skits digitally. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed a group of women intensely fixated on having babies; a different one imagined being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being trapped in a thriller. By chance, she met Seligman through the university’s film scene and eventually appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her journey, she says, has been peers supporting her, rather than established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, continuing with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who had doubts about Sennott previously will surely be regretting it today. In what she calls a “incredibly circular” story, she has manifested the perfect project. A few years back she posted a clip titled on LA life online, in which she lampooned movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a comedy about LA residents juggling advantages of online celebrity (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being accused of being a drug-addled criminal, and possibly becoming a risky pariah). One might easy to produce a show about internet celebrity that was overly aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at its subjects. The series steers clear of each, resulting in a representation of privileged millennial life that’s frank about the mess 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
