Rachel Sennott joins the online meeting and right away launches into an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, seeming truly apologetic. Despite being only a couple of minutes late, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, in this context, this is precisely what you want to encounter. Additionally, it’s quite unsurprising. Anyone familiar with her fearlessly LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass movie titled Bottoms—which she co-wrote with the director and appeared in together with collaborator The Bear’s standout—can already know that she possesses plenty to share, ranging from on gender, relationships, or the merits of forming a high-school brawl society. Furthermore, once you finish her latest eight-part HBO series titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star holds further perspectives on the challenges of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she serves as a relatable figure of the gang, on the cusp adept for connecting different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and the actress admits to being an admirer, citing the show alongside Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as inspirations for the project, which tracks the travails of a social media star Tallulah and ally and new agent portrayed by Sennott. Notably, the biggest spot on concept belonged to Entourage, that HBO sitcom focusing on a rising Hollywood star succeeding in a gritty Hollywood (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott discovered it during the pandemic, became “hooked”, and decided to add a fresh perspective on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she says. The concept for the series came—partly—from firsthand, at first difficult, relocation to LA and from her saturn return, a much-talked-about occurrence for followers. That period marked a phase that saw her understand major insights, in her career and in private life. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she recalls. “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
Raised in New England, Sennott began creating and acting humor while studying performance at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she explains. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott seized control, appearing at open mics with her friend and posting hilarious (and very) unconventional skits digitally. One, Baby Cult, followed characters intensely obsessed with pregnancy; a different one envisioned working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being trapped in a scary movie. By chance, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and ultimately starring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a religious event with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her journey, she explains, has been people her own age giving her a shot, instead of established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, continuing humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who were skeptical regarding Sennott then will certainly be kicking themselves currently. Through she calls a “incredibly circular” story, she has achieved an ideal role. Previously she uploaded a video called “it’s LA” on social media, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about city dwellers balancing benefits of internet fame (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with downsides (your associate being labeled as being a intoxicated thief, and perhaps becoming a risky pariah). It would be easy to create a show about digital influence that was horribly idealized—or, worse, one that punched down at those depicted. The series steers clear of each, creating a representation of affluent twentysomething living that’s candid about the mess and the shine.
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
