🔗 Share this article

Rachel Sennott appears on the online meeting and immediately begins an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, seeming genuinely apologetic. Although she's only a bit late, she wants to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, during an interview, this is just what one hopes to hear. Moreover, it’s pretty unsurprising. Anyone who know the fearlessly queer and brash movie Bottoms—that Sennott penned with her creative partner and appeared in together with her friend Ayo Edebiri—can already know that Sennott holds much to say, whether about identity, relationships, or the merits of forming a high-school combat group. Plus, after watching her new eight-part HBO series titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star has even more insights regarding the challenges of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, she is a bridge of the gang, straddling eras with a knack for straddling both generations).

Inspirations and Artistic Direction

The comparisons to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott readily acknowledges an admirer, naming it together with the classic series, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as influences for I Love LA, which follows the travails of an influencer Tallulah and close companion who is also new talent manager Maia. Perhaps, the largest spot on creative vision belonged to the popular sitcom, that program about an up-and-coming celebrity succeeding in a corrupt Hollywood (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She discovered it during lockdown, became “obsessed”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.

“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she notes. The inspiration for the series came—partly—from personal, at first rocky, move to Tinseltown and from her cosmic event, a popular phenomenon for astrology heads. This represented an era that included her understand some big truths, work-wise and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. It was almost like these biblical tests …”

Starting Out

Raised in Connecticut, the star started creating and acting humor while enrolled in theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

She decided to act independently, taking the stage at amateur nights with Ayo and sharing uproarious (and decidedly) bizarre comedy videos digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed characters intensely fixated on motherhood; another portrayed 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, Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a religious event with shades of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her path, she notes, has been contemporaries supporting her, as opposed to traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, continuing humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”

Manifesting Dreams

Anyone who were skeptical regarding her previously will certainly be regretting it today. Through she describes as a “astonishingly complete” development, she has manifested the perfect project. A few years back she uploaded content called on LA life online, in which she mocked movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with the co-writer) of a series about city dwellers balancing advantages of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being accused of being a intoxicated stealer, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). One might tempting to produce a series about digital influence that was horribly aspirational—or, more problematic, one that mocked at the characters. The series avoids both, creating a portrait of privileged young adult living that’s candid about the grot and the glamour.

Nuanced Portrayal

“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