Rachel Sennott appears on the digital interview and right away begins an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, sounding genuinely regretful. Although she's only a couple of minutes delayed, she wants to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, for a writer, this is just what is ideal to experience. Additionally, it’s fairly unsurprising. Viewers familiar with her unapologetically openly gay and brash film Bottoms—which Sennott penned with the director and appeared in together with her friend Ayo Edebiri—would already know that she has much to discuss, be it about gender, relationships, or the merits of starting a high-school combat group. Plus, once you finish the latest seasonal program titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she has additional insights regarding the darker side of modern youth (As a millennial, Sennott represents a relatable figure to younger audiences, straddling eras with a knack for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Inspirations and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, naming it in addition to Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as guides for I Love LA, which tracks the travails of an influencer Tallulah and close companion and new representative Sennott’s character. Notably, the biggest presence on concept was reserved for the HBO series, the program about an up-and-coming A-list actor navigating in a gritty LA scene (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott started watching it amid lockdown, became “captivated”, and decided 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 explains. The concept for this project came—to some extent—from personal, initially fractious, relocation to LA and from her astrological phase, a much-talked-about event for followers. That period marked a time that involved her learn major life lessons, in her career and individually. “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. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in New England, Sennott began developing and showcasing comedy while enrolled in theatre at a prestigious arts school. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “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?”
Sennott seized control, taking the stage at open mics with Edebiri and uploading hysterical (and distinctly) unconventional online content on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, depicted a group of women fetishistically fixated on having babies; another envisioned working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being trapped in a thriller. By chance, she met Emma through the university’s film scene and eventually featuring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of the intense thriller. The central motif of her path, she notes, has been peers offering opportunities, instead of established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, continuing amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who had doubts about her earlier will certainly be regretting it now. In what she describes as a “astonishingly complete” story, she has created her dream vehicle. Previously she shared a clip called “it’s LA” online, in which she parodied film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a series about Angelenos juggling advantages of internet fame (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your client being labeled as being a drug-addled criminal, and perhaps becoming a risky persona non grata). Some could simple to create a series about digital influence that was horribly idealized—or, more problematic, one that punched down at its subjects. This show avoids both, creating a representation of advantaged millennial living that’s frank about the mess and the appeal.
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
