The actress and writer on her uproarious series about the chaotic appeal of younger generation life
Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and immediately starts an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, sounding really remorseful. She is only slightly behind, she wants to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, during an interview, this is just what one hopes to encounter. Moreover, it’s pretty unsurprising. Viewers familiar with her boldly openly gay and outspoken film titled Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with the director and featured in alongside her friend the talented actress—can understand that Sennott has plenty to say, whether about identity, intimacy, or the merits of starting a high-school combat group. Plus, once you finish the new eight-part HBO series titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she holds additional insights regarding the challenges of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she serves as a bridge to younger audiences, on the cusp adept for connecting both generations).
Influences and Creative Vision
The comparisons to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and the actress is a fan, naming it in addition to the classic series, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as guides for I Love LA, which tracks the journey of a social media star Tallulah and ally who is also new agent Maia. However, the most significant presence on concept went to the popular sitcom, that program focusing on a rising celebrity succeeding in a gritty entertainment industry (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She discovered it throughout COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she explains. The concept for the series emerged—to some extent—from firsthand, at first fractious, relocation to Los Angeles and from the saturn return, a popular phenomenon for followers. This represented a phase that included her learn major truths, professionally and personally. “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 was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Growing up in New England, Sennott started writing and performing comedy while enrolled in theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” 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 took matters into her own hands, performing at amateur nights with her friend and sharing uproarious (and decidedly) unconventional online content online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females fetishistically obsessed with having babies; another envisioned being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being caught in a scary movie. Interestingly, she encountered Emma through campus film circles and eventually featuring in her first film, Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a religious event with echoes of the intense thriller. The big theme of her journey, she notes, has been peers giving her a shot, instead of traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, stating with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Career Breakthrough
Individuals who had doubts regarding Sennott earlier will surely be kicking themselves today. As part of she describes as a “wild, full-circle” development, she has achieved her dream vehicle. In 2019 she posted a clip titled “it’s LA” online, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a series about LA residents balancing benefits of internet fame (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your client being labeled as being a intoxicated criminal, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). One might easy to produce a series about digital influence that was horribly idealized—or, worse, one that punched down at the characters. I Love LA does neither, resulting in a representation of privileged young adult living that’s honest about the mess and the shine.
Balanced Perspective
“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
