Rachel Sennott joins the digital interview and right away begins an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, seeming genuinely remorseful. Although she's only slightly behind, she wants to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Thankfully, for a writer, this is just what is ideal to experience. Additionally, it’s quite expected. Anyone familiar with her boldly queer and unapologetically crass project titled Bottoms—which she collaborated on with the director and starred in with her friend Ayo Edebiri—would understand that she holds much to say, whether about gender, relationships, or the appeal of starting a high-school brawl society. And, once you finish her new multi-episode HBO series I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she carries even more insights regarding the struggles of Gen Z life (At 30, she represents a relatable figure for this generation, straddling eras adept for connecting different age groups).
Influences and Artistic Direction
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and Sennott is a fan, referencing the show alongside Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as guides for the project, which details the travails of online personality Tallulah and close companion and fledgling representative portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the biggest spot on creative vision belonged to Entourage, that HBO sitcom about an up-and-coming Hollywood star navigating in an often-seedy Hollywood (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She discovered it amid lockdown, became “captivated”, and decided to add a fresh perspective 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 notes. The inspiration for this project emerged—partly—from her own, originally rocky, transition to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a much-talked-about occurrence for followers. It was an era that included her learn major insights, professionally and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “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 …”
Starting Out
Brought up in New England, the star commenced writing and performing comedy while enrolled in acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
She decided to act independently, appearing at amateur nights with her friend and posting hilarious (and distinctly) bizarre skits online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on a group of women obsessively fixated on pregnancy; another imagined being employed at a trendy retail outlet as like being stuck in a thriller. Interestingly, she connected with Emma through campus film circles and ultimately starring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of Uncut Gems. A recurring idea of her career, she explains, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, as opposed to established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, stating amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Individuals who were skeptical regarding Sennott previously will surely be regretting it now. In what she describes as a “astonishingly complete” development, she seems to have created the perfect project. In 2019 she uploaded a clip called on LA life on social media, in which she mocked film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about Angelenos balancing benefits of online celebrity (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being accused of being a substance-abusing criminal, and perhaps becoming a unreliable persona non grata). It would be simple to create a program about online fame that was overly glamorous—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at its subjects. The series does neither, resulting in a portrait of privileged twentysomething life that’s frank about the mess and the glamour.
Empathetic Approach
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
