🔗 Share this article

Rachel Sennott appears on the digital interview and at once starts an explanation. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, sounding really remorseful. She is only a bit late, she needs to justify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, during an interview, that’s precisely what is ideal to hear. Additionally, it’s pretty predictable. Anyone who know the fearlessly openly gay and unapologetically crass film Bottoms—which she co-wrote with Emma Seligman and featured in together with her friend Ayo Edebiri—will understand that Sennott possesses a lot to share, whether on identity, sex, or the merits of starting a high-school fight club. Furthermore, once you finish the recent multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she has further thoughts on the struggles of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, Sennott represents a bridge to younger audiences, on the cusp adept for bridging both generations).

Inspirations and Storytelling Approach

Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott readily acknowledges enthusiastic, naming it alongside the classic series, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as inspirations for the project, which follows the journey of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and new talent manager Maia. Perhaps, the largest presence on the moodboard was reserved for Entourage, the HBO sitcom focusing on an emerging Hollywood star navigating in a gritty LA scene (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She began viewing it amid the pandemic, became “hooked”, and decided 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 explains. The inspiration for this project came—in part—from firsthand, at first difficult, move to LA and from the cosmic event, a popular event for followers. It was an era that involved her understand significant life lessons, in her career and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she admits. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Early Beginnings

Brought up in Connecticut, Sennott began creating and acting comedy while enrolled in performance at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “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 took matters into her own hands, performing at amateur nights with Ayo and sharing hilarious (and decidedly) unconventional comedy videos on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, followed characters fetishistically drawn to having babies; a different one envisioned being employed at a trendy retail outlet as like being stuck in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she met Emma through the university’s film scene and ultimately starring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her career, she says, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, as opposed to the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she confirms, adding with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Career Breakthrough

Those who were skeptical about Sennott previously will likely be feeling foolish now. As part of she calls a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she seems to have created her dream vehicle. A few years back she shared a video called “it’s LA” online, in which she parodied film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a show about Angelenos managing the perks of internet fame (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being accused of being a substance-abusing thief, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). One might easy to produce a program about internet celebrity that was horribly glamorous—or, worse, one that mocked at its subjects. I Love LA does neither, creating a portrait of affluent young adult living that’s honest about the grot and the glamour.

Empathetic Approach

“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” she says. “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