Rachel Sennott joins the video call and right away begins an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, appearing genuinely remorseful. Despite being only a couple of minutes late, she feels compelled to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Fortunately, during an interview, this is exactly what is ideal to encounter. Additionally, it’s fairly unsurprising. Viewers who know her unapologetically LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—which she co-wrote with the director and appeared in alongside her friend Ayo Edebiri—will already know that Sennott holds a lot to discuss, be it on gender, intimacy, or the merits of starting a youth fight club. And, once you finish her new multi-episode show titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star has further perspectives on the darker side of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she serves as a relatable figure for this generation, straddling eras adept for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Influences and Creative Vision
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, citing it together with the classic series, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for I Love LA, which follows the travails of online personality Tallulah and ally who is also new talent manager portrayed by Sennott. However, the most significant spot on the moodboard was reserved for Entourage, that show about an emerging Hollywood star making his way in a corrupt entertainment industry (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She began viewing it during the pandemic, became “captivated”, and chose 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 says. The idea for this project emerged—in part—from firsthand, originally rocky, transition to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a popular event for followers. That period marked a time that saw her understand major truths, professionally and in private life. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she recalls. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in New England, Sennott started creating and acting stand-up while studying theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “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. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott seized control, performing at amateur nights with her friend and sharing uproarious (and distinctly) bizarre skits on the internet. One, Baby Cult, depicted several females fetishistically obsessed with pregnancy; a different one portrayed working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being caught in a scary movie. By chance, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her journey, she says, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, rather than established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, continuing amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who were skeptical about her previously will certainly be regretting it today. In what she labels a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she appears to created the perfect project. A few years back she uploaded a video titled on LA life on the internet, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a show about Angelenos balancing the perks of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a drug-addled stealer, and potentially becoming a unreliable pariah). It would be tempting to create a show about digital influence that was overly idealized—or, worse, one that belittled at the characters. The series does neither, resulting in a depiction of privileged twentysomething existence that’s frank about the grot and the appeal.
Nuanced Portrayal
“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
