Rachel Sennott appears on the video call and at once launches into an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, appearing genuinely apologetic. Although she's only slightly delayed, she needs to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, during an interview, that’s exactly what you want to experience. Moreover, it’s pretty unsurprising. Viewers who know her boldly openly gay and brash movie Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with her creative partner and featured in together with collaborator The Bear’s standout—would already know that she possesses much to say, be it on identity, relationships, or the merits of creating a high-school brawl society. Furthermore, by the end the latest multi-episode show I Love LA, viewers realize that the star carries further perspectives on the darker side of Gen Z life (As a millennial, Sennott represents a bridge for this generation, a tale-end millennial with a knack for connecting different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
Parallels to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being an admirer, referencing the show together with the classic series, the acclaimed comedy and Donald Glover’s series as influences for her series, which tracks the struggles of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also new representative portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the biggest presence on creative vision belonged to the HBO series, the program focusing on an up-and-coming Hollywood star succeeding in a corrupt LA scene (notable statement: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She discovered it during the pandemic, became “hooked”, and chose 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 idea for I Love LA originated—to some extent—from personal, originally fractious, move to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a popular phenomenon for followers. This represented a phase that included her grasp major truths, professionally and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” 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 resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Starting Out
Raised in Connecticut, Sennott commenced creating and acting comedy while enrolled in performance at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” 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.”
Sennott decided to act independently, taking the stage at live shows with her friend and sharing uproarious (and decidedly) unconventional comedy videos digitally. One, Baby Cult, depicted several females obsessively drawn to having babies; a different one envisioned being employed at the brand Hollister as akin to being caught in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through the university’s film scene and eventually featuring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her path, she notes, has been contemporaries supporting her, as opposed to the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she confirms, continuing humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Rising Success
Those who had doubts about her earlier will surely be feeling foolish currently. As part of she describes as a “astonishingly complete” story, she seems to have created an ideal role. Previously she shared a clip called on LA life on social media, in which she parodied film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a series about city dwellers balancing the perks of digital stardom (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a substance-abusing thief, and potentially becoming a unreliable pariah). One might tempting to produce a show about digital influence that was overly aspirational—or, worse, one that mocked at those depicted. This show does neither, resulting in a depiction of affluent twentysomething life that’s frank about the grot and the glamour.
Empathetic Approach
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
