Rachel Sennott appears on the online meeting and right away launches into an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, sounding truly apologetic. Despite being only a couple of minutes late, she wants 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!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s precisely what one hopes to encounter. Additionally, it’s pretty unsurprising. Anyone familiar with the boldly queer and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—that she collaborated on with the director and featured in together with collaborator The Bear’s standout—would understand that Sennott holds plenty to discuss, be it on gender, sex, or the appeal of creating a high-school fight club. And, after watching her new eight-part HBO series titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she has additional insights regarding the struggles of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, Sennott represents a relatable figure to younger audiences, straddling eras skilled for straddling different age groups).
Inspirations and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress readily acknowledges enthusiastic, naming the show together with Sex and the City, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as influences for her series, which follows the travails of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and new talent manager portrayed by Sennott. However, the biggest presence on concept was reserved for the popular sitcom, the show depicting an up-and-coming A-list actor making his way in an often-seedy LA scene (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott began viewing it amid COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she explains. The inspiration for I Love LA came—in part—from personal, originally difficult, relocation to LA and from her astrological phase, a much-talked-about event for followers. That period marked a phase that saw her learn some big life lessons, professionally and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Starting Out
Brought up in the East Coast, the star commenced writing and performing humor while studying acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” 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.”
Sennott seized control, appearing at amateur nights with her friend and sharing uproarious (and very) weird skits online. A particular video, Baby Cult, centered on several females intensely fixated on pregnancy; another imagined being employed at a trendy retail outlet as like being stuck in a thriller. By chance, she met Seligman through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her career, she notes, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, as opposed to established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, stating amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who were skeptical about Sennott then will surely be kicking themselves today. Through she describes as a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she has created an ideal role. Previously she uploaded a video called “it’s LA” online, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about Angelenos juggling advantages of internet fame (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being labeled as being a substance-abusing criminal, and possibly becoming a unreliable persona non grata). Some could simple to create a series about internet celebrity that was overly idealized—or, more problematic, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA does neither, creating a representation of advantaged young adult living that’s candid about the grot and the shine.
Nuanced Portrayal
“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
