Rachel Sennott appears on the digital interview and at once starts an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, sounding truly remorseful. She is only a bit late, she wants to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, during an interview, that’s precisely what is ideal to hear. Besides, it’s pretty expected. Those familiar with the unapologetically openly gay and unapologetically crass film Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with Emma Seligman and featured in together with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—can understand that Sennott holds much to discuss, ranging from on identity, sex, or the pros of forming a youth brawl society. And, by the end her recent eight-part program I Love LA, viewers realize that the star carries further perspectives regarding the darker side of Gen Z life (As a millennial, Sennott represents a relatable figure of the gang, a tale-end millennial adept for connecting both generations).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott readily acknowledges enthusiastic, citing it alongside Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for her series, which follows the travails of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and fledgling talent manager portrayed by Sennott. Notably, the most significant spot on the moodboard was reserved for Entourage, that show about a rising A-list actor navigating in an often-seedy entertainment industry (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it during COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and decided to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The idea for I Love LA originated—in part—from personal, at first fractious, relocation to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a much-talked-about event for astrology heads. This represented an era that included her learn some big life lessons, professionally and in private life. “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 resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Early Beginnings
Raised in the East Coast, the star commenced developing and showcasing humor while enrolled in theatre at a prestigious arts school. “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. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at amateur nights with Ayo and uploading hilarious (and distinctly) unconventional skits digitally. One, Baby Cult, depicted a group of women obsessively fixated on pregnancy; a different one imagined working at the brand Hollister as similar to being stuck in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Emma through the university’s film scene and ultimately appearing in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a religious event with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she says, has been peers supporting her, as opposed to traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, stating with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who questioned regarding Sennott earlier will surely be regretting it today. Through she labels a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she seems to have manifested her dream vehicle. In 2019 she uploaded a video named about Los Angeles on social media, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with the co-writer) of a show about city dwellers managing benefits of internet fame (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your client being suspected of being a intoxicated criminal, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). One might simple to create a series about internet celebrity that was horribly idealized—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at those depicted. I Love LA steers clear of each, creating a depiction of affluent young adult living that’s candid about the chaos and the glamour.
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 comments. “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
