Rachel Sennott discussing her uproarious series depicting the chaotic glamour of younger generation life
The star joins the video call and immediately launches into an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, sounding really apologetic. Although she's only a bit late, she wants to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Fortunately, in this context, that’s precisely what one hopes to experience. Besides, it’s quite predictable. Anyone who have seen her fearlessly openly gay and outspoken movie titled Bottoms—which she co-wrote with Emma Seligman and featured in together with collaborator The Bear’s standout—will already know that Sennott has a lot to discuss, be it about identity, intimacy, or the appeal of creating a youth brawl society. Plus, by the end her recent eight-part show titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she has even more insights regarding the darker side of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she serves as an honorary member to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial with a knack for straddling both generations).
Influences and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and Sennott readily acknowledges a fan, referencing the show in addition to the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as guides for the project, which details the travails of a social media star Tallulah and close companion and new talent manager Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the biggest influence on the moodboard belonged to the HBO series, the program about a rising A-list actor succeeding in a corrupt Hollywood (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it amid the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and chose to create a new version on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she explains. The idea for this project came—in part—from personal, at first difficult, transition to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a much-talked-about event for followers. It was a phase that involved her learn major life lessons, professionally and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she says. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in Connecticut, the star commenced developing and showcasing humor while pursuing theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she says. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, performing at open mics with Edebiri and uploading hysterical (and decidedly) weird skits online. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted a group of women obsessively drawn to motherhood; another imagined working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being caught in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately featuring in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a Jewish wake with hints of Uncut Gems. A recurring idea of her path, she explains, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, instead of traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, adding humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who were skeptical regarding Sennott earlier will surely be regretting it currently. As part of she labels a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she appears to manifested her dream vehicle. In 2019 she uploaded a clip called about Los Angeles online, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a show about Angelenos juggling advantages of digital stardom (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your client being accused of being a substance-abusing thief, and potentially becoming a risky outcast). One might simple to produce a program about digital influence that was overly idealized—or, worse, one that belittled at those depicted. I Love LA avoids both, creating a representation of privileged young adult living that’s candid about the chaos 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 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