Rachel Sennott enters the digital interview and right away launches into an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, sounding truly apologetic. Although she's only a couple of minutes delayed, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, during an interview, this is just what is ideal to experience. Besides, it’s quite unsurprising. Anyone who have seen her unapologetically queer and brash project Bottoms—that Sennott co-wrote with the director and starred in together with her friend Ayo Edebiri—would understand that she possesses plenty to discuss, be it about gender, intimacy, or the pros of forming a high-school brawl society. Plus, after watching the new seasonal show titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star holds additional thoughts on the darker side of modern youth (At 30, Sennott represents an honorary member of the gang, on the cusp adept for bridging both generations).
Influences and Artistic Direction
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott is an admirer, citing it alongside the HBO hit, the acclaimed comedy and Donald Glover’s series as guides for the project, which follows the struggles of a social media star Tallulah and ally who is also fledgling talent manager portrayed by Sennott. However, the biggest presence on creative vision was reserved for the popular sitcom, that program focusing on a rising celebrity navigating in an often-seedy Hollywood (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott started watching it amid the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and chose 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 inspiration for I Love LA originated—in part—from her own, at first rocky, transition to LA and from the cosmic event, a popular phenomenon for followers. This represented an era that involved her grasp significant life lessons, professionally and personally. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she says. “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…”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in Connecticut, Sennott began writing and performing humor while pursuing acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She took matters into her own hands, performing at live shows with Edebiri and sharing hilarious (and very) bizarre comedy videos online. One, Baby Cult, depicted a group of women intensely drawn to motherhood; a different one portrayed being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being caught in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she met Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her journey, she explains, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, rather than established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, adding with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who questioned about her then will certainly be regretting it today. As part of she labels a “incredibly circular” story, she appears to created the perfect project. Previously she posted content called “it’s LA” on social media, in which she parodied film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a series about city dwellers balancing the perks of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being accused of being a substance-abusing thief, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). Some could easy to make a series about digital influence that was overly aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA steers clear of each, resulting in a representation of advantaged twentysomething life that’s candid about the chaos and the shine.
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
