Rachel Sennott joins the digital interview and right away begins an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, seeming truly apologetic. Although she's only a couple of minutes late, she wants to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, in this context, that’s exactly what you want to encounter. Besides, it’s fairly expected. Anyone who know the fearlessly openly gay and brash movie Bottoms—that she collaborated on with her creative partner and starred in with her friend the talented actress—would understand that Sennott possesses plenty to share, be it on identity, sex, or the appeal of creating a youth brawl society. And, once you finish the latest eight-part show I Love LA, it is clear that the star has additional perspectives about the darker side of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, Sennott represents an honorary member of the gang, a tale-end millennial adept for straddling different age groups).
Inspirations and Artistic Direction
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, naming the show in addition to Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as influences for the project, which follows the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also aspiring representative Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the largest influence on concept belonged to Entourage, the program about an emerging A-list actor succeeding in an often-seedy entertainment industry (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott discovered it during the pandemic, became “captivated”, and resolved to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she notes. The idea for the series came—partly—from firsthand, initially difficult, relocation to Los Angeles and from the astrological phase, a popular phenomenon for astrology heads. That period marked an era that saw her grasp major life lessons, in her career and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Starting Out
Brought up in the East Coast, the star commenced writing and performing humor while studying acting at a prestigious arts school. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She took matters into her own hands, appearing at amateur nights with Edebiri and uploading hilarious (and distinctly) weird skits online. One, titled Baby Cult, followed characters obsessively drawn to motherhood; a different one imagined being employed at the brand Hollister as akin to being caught in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through the university’s film scene and eventually appearing in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a funeral gathering with shades of the intense thriller. The big theme of her career, she explains, has been peers giving her a shot, rather than traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she repeats, adding amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who had doubts about her previously will certainly be regretting it now. As part of she calls a “wild, full-circle” story, she appears to achieved an ideal role. A few years back she uploaded content named about Los Angeles online, in which she lampooned film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a series about Angelenos managing the perks of digital stardom (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with downsides (your friend being labeled as being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a unreliable persona non grata). One might easy to produce a program about online fame that was extremely idealized—or, worse, one that punched down at those depicted. I Love LA avoids both, making for a representation of affluent millennial living that’s candid about the mess and the glamour.
Balanced Perspective
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
