Rachel Sennott joins the video call and immediately begins an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, seeming truly regretful. Although she's only a bit delayed, she needs to justify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Fortunately, in this context, this is exactly what one hopes to encounter. Additionally, it’s quite predictable. Viewers familiar with her fearlessly openly gay and brash movie titled Bottoms—that she collaborated on with the director and featured in with her friend Ayo Edebiri—can already know that Sennott holds a lot to share, be it about roles, intimacy, or the merits of starting a high-school fight club. Plus, by the end her recent seasonal program I Love LA, it is clear that the star holds even more perspectives on the struggles of Gen Z life (At 30, she represents an honorary member of the gang, a tale-end millennial adept for bridging both generations).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott admits to being an admirer, naming it together with the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as influences for the project, which tracks the journey of an influencer Tallulah and ally and aspiring talent manager portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the most significant influence on the moodboard belonged to the popular sitcom, the HBO sitcom focusing on an emerging celebrity succeeding in an often-seedy LA scene (choice quote: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She discovered it amid the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The inspiration for the series originated—to some extent—from personal, originally fractious, relocation to Los Angeles and from her saturn return, a much-talked-about event for astrology heads. That period marked an era that included her grasp major insights, professionally 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. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Humble Origins
Growing up in Connecticut, the star started developing and showcasing humor while pursuing theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She seized control, taking the stage at amateur nights with Edebiri and uploading hilarious (and very) unconventional online content online. One, Baby Cult, centered on several females fetishistically drawn to pregnancy; another portrayed working at the brand Hollister as like being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she connected with Emma through campus film circles and ended up featuring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her career, she says, has been peers supporting her, instead of traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, adding amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who questioned regarding her then will surely be kicking themselves today. As part of she labels a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she seems to have manifested her dream vehicle. A few years back she shared a video named “it’s LA” on social media, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a series about LA residents juggling advantages of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being labeled as being a substance-abusing criminal, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). One might simple to produce a series about digital influence that was overly glamorous—or, more problematic, one that belittled at the characters. I Love LA does neither, resulting in a representation of privileged young adult existence that’s honest about the grot and the appeal.
Balanced Perspective
“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
