Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and at once launches into an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, sounding really regretful. She is only a bit delayed, she feels compelled to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Thankfully, for a writer, this is precisely what one hopes to hear. Moreover, it’s pretty unsurprising. Anyone who have seen the boldly queer and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—which she co-wrote with her creative partner and appeared in together with close companion Ayo Edebiri—would understand that Sennott has plenty to say, whether about gender, intimacy, or the pros of creating a youth brawl society. Plus, after watching the new multi-episode HBO series I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star has further perspectives on the darker side of modern youth (At 30, Sennott is a relatable figure for this generation, a tale-end millennial skilled for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Inspirations and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress admits to being a fan, citing it alongside the HBO hit, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for I Love LA, which details the travails of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also new agent Maia. However, the most significant presence on the moodboard went to the HBO series, that show focusing on an emerging Hollywood star succeeding in an often-seedy LA scene (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She discovered it during lockdown, became “obsessed”, and chose to create a new version 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 notes. The inspiration for I Love LA originated—partly—from personal, at first fractious, relocation to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a frequently discussed occurrence for astrology heads. It was a phase that saw her understand significant truths, in her career and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “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
Growing up in Connecticut, Sennott began developing and showcasing stand-up while enrolled in performance at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She decided to act independently, performing at live shows with Ayo and uploading uproarious (and decidedly) unconventional comedy videos online. One, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females fetishistically fixated on motherhood; another portrayed being employed at the brand Hollister as like being caught in a scary movie. By chance, she encountered Emma through NYU’s movie community and ultimately appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a funeral gathering with hints of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her journey, she explains, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, rather than traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, continuing humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who were skeptical regarding her previously will likely be kicking themselves today. In what she labels a “wild, full-circle” story, she seems to have manifested the perfect project. In 2019 she posted a video titled about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she mocked movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a series about city dwellers balancing advantages of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your associate being labeled as being a drug-addled stealer, and possibly becoming a risky outcast). It would be simple to produce a show about online fame that was overly idealized—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at its subjects. The series does neither, resulting in a portrait of advantaged young adult living that’s frank about the chaos 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 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
