Rachel Sennott joins the digital interview and immediately starts an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, sounding really regretful. Despite being only a bit late, she feels compelled to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Fortunately, for a writer, this is precisely what one hopes to hear. Additionally, it’s fairly expected. Anyone who have seen the unapologetically queer and outspoken movie Bottoms—which she penned with her creative partner and featured in together with collaborator the talented actress—can understand that Sennott holds much to say, be it about gender, sex, or the pros of creating a youth fight club. Furthermore, after watching the recent multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star carries further perspectives about the challenges of Gen Z life (At 30, she serves as a relatable figure of the gang, on the cusp adept for connecting different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott readily acknowledges an admirer, referencing the show in addition to the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as influences for I Love LA, which follows the struggles of a social media star Tallulah and her friend and fledgling talent manager Maia. However, the biggest influence on creative vision belonged to Entourage, the program about an emerging A-list actor navigating in an often-seedy entertainment industry (notable statement: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott started watching it amid COVID-19, became “captivated”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective 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 explains. The inspiration for the series originated—in part—from her own, initially fractious, transition to Tinseltown and from the saturn return, a popular event for enthusiasts. It was a time that involved her learn some big life lessons, in her career and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she recalls. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in Connecticut, Sennott started writing and performing stand-up while pursuing theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. 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?”
She seized control, performing at live shows with her friend and posting hilarious (and very) unconventional online content on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on characters obsessively obsessed with pregnancy; another imagined working at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being stuck in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she met Seligman through the university’s film scene and eventually appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her path, she notes, has been peers giving her a shot, rather than the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, continuing amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who questioned about her previously will surely be kicking themselves currently. In what she calls a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she has achieved her dream vehicle. In 2019 she posted content called about Los Angeles on social media, in which she parodied film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about city dwellers juggling advantages of internet fame (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being accused of being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). It would be simple to make a show about internet celebrity that was overly aspirational—or, more problematic, one that punched down at its subjects. I Love LA avoids both, resulting in a portrait of affluent millennial life that’s candid about the mess and the glamour.
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 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
