Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and right away starts an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, seeming really apologetic. Despite being only slightly behind, she wants to clarify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s exactly what you want to experience. Besides, it’s pretty unsurprising. Viewers who have seen her boldly openly gay and unapologetically crass film Bottoms—that Sennott penned with her creative partner and appeared in with close companion the talented actress—will be aware that Sennott has much to say, whether on gender, sex, or the appeal of forming a high-school combat group. And, once you finish her recent seasonal show titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star holds even more perspectives regarding the struggles of young adulthood (At 30, Sennott is an honorary member of the gang, a tale-end millennial skilled for straddling both generations).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
Parallels to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and the actress is a fan, naming the show together with the classic series, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as influences for I Love LA, which follows the struggles of a social media star Tallulah and ally and fledgling talent manager Sennott’s character. However, the most significant spot on concept belonged to the HBO series, the show depicting an emerging celebrity succeeding in a corrupt Hollywood (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She began viewing it throughout COVID-19, became “captivated”, and chose to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she explains. The idea for this project originated—partly—from her own, initially rocky, move to Tinseltown and from her cosmic event, a popular occurrence for enthusiasts. This represented a phase that involved her understand major life lessons, work-wise and in private life. “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. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Starting Out
Growing up in New England, the star started developing and showcasing humor while studying performance at a prestigious arts school. “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. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, appearing at open mics with Edebiri and posting hilarious (and decidedly) unconventional comedy videos on the internet. One, Baby Cult, followed a group of women fetishistically drawn to motherhood; a different one envisioned working at a trendy retail outlet as like being stuck in a thriller. Interestingly, she encountered Emma through campus film circles and eventually featuring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the intense thriller. The big theme of her path, she says, has been peers supporting her, as opposed to established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, adding amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who questioned regarding Sennott earlier will certainly be kicking themselves now. In what she describes as a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she seems to have achieved an ideal role. Previously she shared a clip titled “it’s LA” online, in which she lampooned film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a series about city dwellers juggling the perks of internet fame (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a drug-addled thief, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). One might easy to make a show about online fame that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that belittled at its subjects. The series does neither, making for a portrait of privileged young adult existence that’s candid about the chaos and the glamour.
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 comments. “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
