Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and right away launches into an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, sounding really regretful. She is only slightly delayed, she feels compelled to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, during an interview, this is just what one hopes to experience. Additionally, it’s quite unsurprising. Viewers who have seen the unapologetically LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—which she penned with Emma Seligman and appeared in with close companion The Bear’s standout—will understand that she holds much to discuss, ranging from on identity, sex, or the appeal of creating a teen brawl society. Plus, once you finish her latest seasonal show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she holds additional perspectives regarding the challenges of young adulthood (At 30, Sennott represents a relatable figure of the gang, a tale-end millennial with a knack for bridging both generations).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and Sennott admits to being a fan, naming the show in addition to Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as guides for her series, which follows the struggles of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also new talent manager Sennott’s character. Notably, the largest presence on concept belonged to Entourage, that HBO sitcom focusing on an emerging A-list actor making his way in an often-seedy Hollywood (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She started watching it throughout the pandemic, became “hooked”, 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 notes. The concept for I Love LA originated—in part—from personal, initially rocky, relocation to LA and from her saturn return, a much-talked-about event for enthusiasts. This represented an era that involved her understand significant truths, work-wise and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “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 …”
Early Beginnings
Growing up in New England, Sennott started creating and acting comedy while enrolled in acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She decided to act independently, performing at open mics with Edebiri and posting hilarious (and decidedly) unconventional skits online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed a group of women obsessively obsessed with pregnancy; a different one imagined working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being stuck in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a Jewish wake with hints of Uncut Gems. The big theme of her career, she says, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, instead of the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, continuing humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who were skeptical regarding Sennott then will certainly be regretting it now. Through she labels a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she has manifested the perfect project. A few years back she shared a clip called “it’s LA” online, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a series about LA residents managing the perks of internet fame (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being labeled as being a intoxicated criminal, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). Some could tempting to create a program about internet celebrity that was overly idealized—or, more problematic, one that punched down at its subjects. This show avoids both, creating a portrait of advantaged millennial living that’s honest about the grot and the glamour.
Empathetic Approach
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
