Rachel Sennott appears on the digital interview and immediately launches into an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, seeming truly remorseful. She is only a bit late, she wants to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, for a writer, this is just what you want to encounter. Besides, it’s fairly predictable. Viewers familiar with the fearlessly queer and unapologetically crass project titled Bottoms—that Sennott penned with Emma Seligman and starred in with her friend the talented actress—will understand that Sennott has a lot to share, be it on gender, sex, or the pros of starting a high-school fight club. Furthermore, by the end the recent eight-part program titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she has additional perspectives regarding the darker side of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, Sennott represents a bridge for this generation, a tale-end millennial adept for connecting both generations).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
Parallels to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and Sennott is enthusiastic, referencing the show in addition to the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for I Love LA, which details the struggles of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and aspiring representative portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the largest influence on the moodboard was reserved for the popular sitcom, the HBO sitcom about an up-and-coming celebrity succeeding in an often-seedy entertainment industry (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott began viewing it throughout the pandemic, became “captivated”, and chose to create a new version on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she notes. The concept for this project came—to some extent—from firsthand, originally rocky, transition to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a popular event for astrology heads. It was an era that included her grasp significant truths, professionally and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Starting Out
Raised in the East Coast, the star began developing and showcasing humor while enrolled in acting at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She took matters into her own hands, appearing at open mics with Edebiri and uploading hysterical (and distinctly) bizarre skits online. One, Baby Cult, centered on several females fetishistically obsessed with having babies; a different one envisioned being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being stuck in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she met Emma through the university’s film scene and eventually appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her path, she says, has been people her own age offering opportunities, rather than established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, adding amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Rising Success
Individuals who had doubts regarding Sennott earlier will certainly be feeling foolish today. In what she calls a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she has created her dream vehicle. A few years back she shared a clip titled “it’s LA” online, in which she mocked film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a comedy about Angelenos juggling advantages of digital stardom (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being labeled as being a drug-addled stealer, and potentially becoming a risky outcast). One might easy to create a program about digital influence that was overly glamorous—or, worse, one that belittled at the characters. The series does neither, resulting in a portrait of affluent millennial life that’s honest about the chaos and the glamour.
Balanced Perspective
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
