Rachel Sennott joins the video call and at once begins an explanation. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, appearing really remorseful. Despite being only a couple of minutes behind, she feels compelled to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Fortunately, in this context, this is just what one hopes to hear. Additionally, it’s quite predictable. Viewers who know her unapologetically LGBTQ+ and outspoken film Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with the director and featured in together with her friend the talented actress—will already know that Sennott holds much to share, whether on gender, intimacy, or the merits of forming a youth combat group. Furthermore, once you finish the recent multi-episode show I Love LA, viewers realize that the star has additional thoughts about the challenges of young adulthood (As a millennial, she is an honorary member of the gang, a tale-end millennial skilled for straddling both generations).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress is enthusiastic, citing the show together with Sex and the City, Insecure and the innovative program as guides for her series, which follows the travails of a social media star Tallulah and close companion and aspiring representative Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the most significant presence on creative vision was reserved for the popular sitcom, the HBO sitcom focusing on an emerging celebrity navigating in an often-seedy Hollywood (choice quote: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott began viewing it throughout the pandemic, became “captivated”, and decided to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she says. The idea for I Love LA originated—in part—from firsthand, at first rocky, move to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a much-talked-about phenomenon for enthusiasts. It was an era that saw her learn some big truths, professionally and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Raised in the East Coast, the star commenced writing and performing comedy while pursuing performance at NYU’s Tisch. “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.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at amateur nights with her friend and sharing hysterical (and very) unconventional comedy videos digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on characters fetishistically drawn to pregnancy; another portrayed being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being caught in a horror film. By chance, she met Emma through the university’s film scene and ended up appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a religious event with hints of Uncut Gems. A recurring idea of her path, she says, has been peers giving her a shot, rather than traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, stating humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who were skeptical about her previously will likely be regretting it now. In what she calls a “astonishingly complete” development, she appears to achieved an ideal role. In 2019 she posted a clip titled on LA life on the internet, in which she mocked movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a series about LA residents managing benefits of internet fame (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a drug-addled thief, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). Some could tempting to create a program about online fame that was overly idealized—or, more problematic, one that mocked at those depicted. The series avoids both, creating a representation of advantaged twentysomething existence that’s candid about the grot and the appeal.
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
