Rachel Sennott enters the video call and at once begins an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, seeming genuinely remorseful. Although she's only a bit late, she feels compelled to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, during an interview, this is just what you want to encounter. Moreover, it’s quite unsurprising. Anyone who have seen her fearlessly LGBTQ+ and outspoken movie titled Bottoms—that she co-wrote with Emma Seligman and appeared in alongside her friend the talented actress—can understand that Sennott holds much to say, be it on roles, relationships, or the pros of starting a youth fight club. Plus, after watching the recent multi-episode show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she has additional insights regarding the struggles of young adulthood (At 30, Sennott is an honorary member to younger audiences, straddling eras skilled for connecting millennials and Gen Z).
Inspirations and Creative Vision
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and the actress is enthusiastic, naming it alongside the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for her series, which details the struggles of a social media star Tallulah and close companion who is also aspiring agent portrayed by Sennott. Notably, the largest presence on concept was reserved for Entourage, the HBO sitcom depicting an up-and-coming A-list actor navigating in a corrupt LA scene (notable statement: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She began viewing it throughout lockdown, became “captivated”, and resolved to put her own twist 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 notes. The idea for I Love LA originated—partly—from personal, at first fractious, relocation to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a much-talked-about occurrence for astrology heads. It was a time that included her understand some big life lessons, professionally and in private life. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she says. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in New England, the star started creating and acting stand-up while enrolled in acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She took matters into her own hands, appearing at open mics with her friend and uploading hysterical (and distinctly) weird skits online. One, Baby Cult, followed several females obsessively obsessed with motherhood; a different one portrayed working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being stuck in a horror film. Interestingly, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and eventually appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the intense thriller. The big theme of her path, she notes, has been peers offering opportunities, as opposed to traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, continuing amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”
Rising Success
Individuals who were skeptical regarding Sennott previously will likely be feeling foolish today. Through she describes as a “incredibly circular” development, she appears to created the perfect project. In 2019 she uploaded a video titled about Los Angeles on social media, in which she mocked film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a series about LA residents managing advantages of internet fame (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being accused of being a intoxicated stealer, and perhaps becoming a unreliable outcast). One might tempting to create a show about online fame that was extremely aspirational—or, worse, one that belittled at those depicted. The series avoids both, resulting in a depiction of affluent millennial life that’s honest about the mess 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
