Rachel Sennott appears on the video call and right away launches into an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, appearing truly regretful. Despite being only a bit behind, she feels compelled to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Fortunately, during an interview, that’s precisely what one hopes to hear. Moreover, it’s fairly predictable. Anyone familiar with her unapologetically openly gay and outspoken movie Bottoms—that Sennott collaborated on with her creative partner and appeared in alongside close companion The Bear’s standout—can understand that Sennott has a lot to discuss, be it on identity, relationships, or the merits of forming a teen fight club. Furthermore, after watching her new eight-part program titled I Love LA, it is clear that she holds further perspectives on the struggles of Gen Z life (As a millennial, Sennott is a bridge for this generation, straddling eras skilled for connecting different age groups).
Inspirations and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and the actress readily acknowledges an admirer, citing it in addition to Sex and the City, Insecure and the innovative program as inspirations for I Love LA, which follows the travails of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also new representative Maia. However, the largest spot on creative vision went to the popular sitcom, the show focusing on an up-and-coming celebrity making his way in a gritty entertainment industry (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott started watching it during the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and chose to add a fresh perspective on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she says. The concept for I Love LA came—in part—from firsthand, at first rocky, relocation to Los Angeles and from the saturn return, a popular occurrence for enthusiasts. It was a phase that saw her grasp major life lessons, professionally and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in New England, the star started creating and acting humor while studying acting at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “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. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
She took matters into her own hands, performing at open mics with Edebiri and posting hysterical (and decidedly) weird online content online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed a group of women intensely obsessed with having babies; a different one envisioned being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being stuck in a scary movie. Interestingly, she encountered Emma through NYU’s movie community and ended up starring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a religious event with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her path, she explains, has been people her own age giving her a shot, as opposed to the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, adding with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who questioned about her then will certainly be feeling foolish currently. In what she describes as a “incredibly circular” story, she appears to manifested the perfect project. In 2019 she uploaded content named on LA life on social media, in which she mocked movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a show about Angelenos balancing benefits of digital stardom (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being suspected of being a drug-addled stealer, and perhaps becoming a risky persona non grata). It would be easy to produce a show about online fame that was overly idealized—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at the characters. This show does neither, making for a representation of affluent twentysomething existence that’s candid about the grot 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
