Rachel Sennott on the uproarious show portraying that chaotic allure of younger generation life
The star joins the online meeting and at once launches into an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, seeming truly regretful. Despite being only slightly delayed, she feels compelled to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s just what is ideal to hear. Moreover, it’s fairly expected. Those who have seen the fearlessly openly gay and outspoken project Bottoms—which she collaborated on with Emma Seligman and starred in together with her friend Ayo Edebiri—will understand that Sennott holds a lot to share, whether on gender, relationships, or the pros of forming a teen combat group. And, once you finish the new multi-episode program I Love LA, it is clear that she carries additional perspectives on the struggles of young adulthood (At 30, Sennott represents an honorary member for this generation, a tale-end millennial with a knack for straddling both generations).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress is a fan, referencing it alongside Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for I Love LA, which tracks the travails of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and new representative portrayed by Sennott. However, the largest influence on concept went to the popular sitcom, that HBO sitcom depicting an up-and-coming A-list actor succeeding in an often-seedy LA scene (notable statement: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She discovered it throughout lockdown, became “hooked”, and chose to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she says. The idea for this project came—partly—from her own, at first difficult, transition to Tinseltown and from the astrological phase, a much-talked-about occurrence for followers. That period marked a time that saw her learn major life lessons, in her career and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Starting Out
Growing up in Connecticut, the star began creating and acting comedy while enrolled in acting at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She decided to act independently, taking the stage at open mics with Ayo and sharing hysterical (and distinctly) unconventional online content online. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted characters obsessively drawn to pregnancy; another envisioned working at the brand Hollister as like being stuck in a thriller. Interestingly, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately featuring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the intense thriller. The big theme of her path, she explains, has been peers giving her a shot, instead of traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, stating amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Rising Success
Those who questioned regarding her previously will likely be regretting it currently. Through she calls a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she seems to have achieved the perfect project. A few years back she uploaded a clip named about Los Angeles online, in which she mocked movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about city dwellers juggling advantages of internet fame (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your client being labeled as being a drug-addled stealer, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). One might easy to make a show about internet celebrity that was extremely idealized—or, more problematic, one that mocked at the characters. I Love LA does neither, creating a representation of affluent young adult life 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