Rachel Sennott joins the video call and right away starts an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, seeming truly remorseful. Despite being only a couple of minutes late, she feels compelled to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s precisely what is ideal to encounter. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Those familiar with the boldly queer and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—that Sennott collaborated on with Emma Seligman and appeared in alongside close companion Ayo Edebiri—can already know that she has a lot to share, ranging from on identity, intimacy, or the appeal of forming a high-school brawl society. Furthermore, once you finish her recent eight-part program I Love LA, viewers realize that she has further thoughts about the darker side of Gen Z life (At 30, she is a bridge to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial skilled for straddling both generations).
Inspirations and Artistic Direction
Parallels to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and Sennott is enthusiastic, naming the show together with the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as inspirations for I Love LA, which tracks the struggles of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and new talent manager Sennott’s character. However, the largest influence on the moodboard belonged to the popular sitcom, the show depicting a rising A-list actor navigating in a gritty entertainment industry (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott started watching it amid the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she notes. The inspiration for the series originated—to some extent—from personal, at first fractious, move to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a popular phenomenon for astrology heads. This represented a time that saw her learn major truths, in her career and individually. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Humble Origins
Brought up in New England, the star began writing and performing comedy while pursuing theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at live shows with her friend and sharing uproarious (and distinctly) bizarre online content online. One, titled Baby Cult, followed characters obsessively obsessed with motherhood; another envisioned working at the brand Hollister as like being trapped in a thriller. Interestingly, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately starring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a Jewish wake with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she says, has been peers supporting her, as opposed to the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, continuing humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Individuals who had doubts regarding Sennott previously will likely be feeling foolish today. Through she describes as a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she has manifested an ideal role. A few years back she shared a video titled about Los Angeles online, in which she parodied movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a comedy about city dwellers managing advantages of online celebrity (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being suspected of being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a unreliable outcast). It would be easy to make a program about digital influence that was overly glamorous—or, worse, one that punched down at those depicted. The series steers clear of each, creating a representation of advantaged young adult living that’s candid about the mess and the appeal.
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
