Rachel Sennott enters the video call and immediately launches into an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, sounding really apologetic. She is only slightly delayed, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Fortunately, in this context, this is precisely what is ideal to hear. Besides, it’s quite unsurprising. Anyone who know her unapologetically LGBTQ+ and outspoken film Bottoms—which she penned with her creative partner and appeared in with her friend The Bear’s standout—would understand that she has plenty to share, ranging from about gender, intimacy, or the appeal of forming a teen fight club. Plus, after watching her new eight-part HBO series titled I Love LA, it is clear that she carries even more insights regarding the struggles of young adulthood (At 30, Sennott serves as a bridge of the gang, on the cusp skilled for straddling different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and the actress is an admirer, referencing it in addition to the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as guides for the project, which details the struggles of a social media star Tallulah and ally who is also fledgling representative Sennott’s character. However, the largest spot on the moodboard was reserved for Entourage, the program about an up-and-coming Hollywood star navigating in an often-seedy Hollywood (choice quote: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott discovered it during lockdown, became “captivated”, and decided 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 says. The inspiration for this project came—in part—from her own, at first difficult, move to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a popular occurrence for enthusiasts. This represented an era that included her understand some big insights, in her career and individually. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she admits. “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
Growing up in the East Coast, Sennott started developing and showcasing comedy while studying performance at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She took matters into her own hands, appearing at live shows with Edebiri and posting uproarious (and distinctly) bizarre skits digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on a group of women obsessively fixated on having babies; another imagined working at the brand Hollister as like being stuck in a thriller. By chance, she encountered Emma through NYU’s movie community and ended up featuring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her journey, she says, has been peers supporting her, rather than established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, adding with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Career Breakthrough
Individuals who had doubts regarding her previously will certainly be regretting it today. In what she labels a “wild, full-circle” development, she has created her dream vehicle. In 2019 she posted content called on LA life on social media, in which she mocked movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a series about city dwellers balancing the perks of digital stardom (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a unreliable pariah). It would be easy to produce a show about online fame that was overly glamorous—or, worse, one that mocked at those depicted. The series does neither, resulting in a portrait of privileged young adult living that’s honest about the grot and the glamour.
Empathetic Approach
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” she observes. “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
