Rachel Sennott joins the video call and right away launches into an explanation. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, sounding truly remorseful. Although she's only a bit late, she needs to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, in this context, this is just what one hopes to hear. Additionally, it’s quite predictable. Viewers familiar with the unapologetically queer and brash movie titled Bottoms—that Sennott penned with the director and appeared in with close companion the talented actress—would be aware that she has a lot to share, be it about gender, relationships, or the pros of starting a teen brawl society. Plus, by the end her new multi-episode program titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she holds further thoughts about the struggles of Gen Z life (As a millennial, she is an honorary member for this generation, a tale-end millennial with a knack for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Influences and Artistic Direction
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and Sennott readily acknowledges a fan, citing the show together with Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as guides for the project, which follows the journey of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also new agent Sennott’s character. Notably, the largest spot on the moodboard was reserved for the popular sitcom, that HBO sitcom about an emerging A-list actor succeeding in an often-seedy LA scene (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She discovered it during lockdown, became “obsessed”, and resolved to create a new version on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she says. The inspiration for I Love LA originated—in part—from personal, initially rocky, relocation to Los Angeles and from her saturn return, a much-talked-about phenomenon for enthusiasts. That period marked an era that included her learn some big life lessons, work-wise and personally. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she recalls. “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
Brought up in Connecticut, the star started creating and acting stand-up 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 explains. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
She seized control, performing at amateur nights with Ayo and sharing hysterical (and decidedly) weird comedy videos online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed a group of women intensely drawn to pregnancy; a different one envisioned working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being caught in a scary movie. Interestingly, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and eventually featuring in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of the intense thriller. The central motif of her journey, she explains, has been peers supporting her, instead of established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, stating with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who questioned regarding Sennott then will surely be regretting it currently. As part of she describes as a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she appears to created her dream vehicle. A few years back she posted a video called about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she mocked movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a show about Angelenos balancing benefits of internet fame (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being suspected of being a intoxicated thief, and perhaps becoming a risky outcast). It would be simple to make a series about digital influence that was horribly idealized—or, worse, one that mocked at its subjects. The series does neither, resulting in a portrait of advantaged young adult life that’s candid about the mess and the shine.
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
