Rachel Sennott appears on the video call and right away starts an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, seeming really regretful. Although she's only slightly late, she needs to explain. “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 just what one hopes to encounter. Moreover, it’s fairly predictable. Anyone who know the fearlessly openly gay and brash project titled Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with the director and starred in with her friend The Bear’s standout—will already know that Sennott possesses much to share, ranging from about roles, sex, or the pros of starting a youth brawl society. Plus, by the end the recent eight-part show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she has even more thoughts regarding the struggles of modern youth (As a millennial, she is a bridge to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial adept for straddling different age groups).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott is a fan, citing the show alongside the classic series, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as guides for I Love LA, which follows the struggles of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and new representative Sennott’s character. However, the most significant influence on creative vision went to the HBO series, that HBO sitcom focusing on a rising Hollywood star navigating in an often-seedy LA scene (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She discovered it throughout COVID-19, became “captivated”, and decided to add a fresh perspective on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she says. The idea for I Love LA originated—in part—from personal, at first difficult, move to Los Angeles and from the saturn return, a popular event for enthusiasts. It was a time that included her understand major insights, professionally and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “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 …”
Humble Origins
Brought up in Connecticut, Sennott started developing and showcasing comedy while studying acting at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at open mics with her friend and uploading hilarious (and very) weird comedy videos on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed a group of women obsessively fixated on having babies; another envisioned working at the brand Hollister as similar to being caught in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Emma through NYU’s movie community and ended up starring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a religious event with hints of Uncut Gems. The big theme of her journey, she says, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, rather than established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, continuing with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who had doubts regarding Sennott earlier will certainly be feeling foolish today. As part of she labels a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she seems to have manifested the perfect project. In 2019 she shared a clip named on LA life online, in which she parodied movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a comedy about city dwellers managing advantages of internet fame (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being labeled as being a drug-addled criminal, and possibly becoming a unreliable pariah). It would be simple to make a series about internet celebrity that was horribly glamorous—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at its subjects. This show avoids both, making for a depiction of affluent millennial life that’s frank about the chaos and the appeal.
Empathetic Approach
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
