Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and immediately starts an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, appearing genuinely regretful. Despite being only a bit behind, she needs to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Thankfully, in this context, this is just what you want to experience. Moreover, it’s quite expected. Anyone who know the fearlessly queer and brash movie Bottoms—that Sennott co-wrote with her creative partner and appeared in with close companion Ayo Edebiri—can be aware that Sennott possesses much to say, be it about roles, intimacy, or the merits of starting a high-school combat group. Furthermore, once you finish the latest multi-episode show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she holds further perspectives on the challenges of modern youth (As a millennial, she serves as a bridge for this generation, a tale-end millennial skilled for straddling both generations).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott is an admirer, naming the show in addition to the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as influences for I Love LA, which follows the struggles of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and ally and new talent manager Maia. However, the biggest influence on creative vision belonged to Entourage, that show about an emerging A-list actor navigating in a gritty LA scene (memorable line: “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”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she says. The idea for this project came—to some extent—from her own, at first difficult, relocation to LA and from her cosmic event, a much-talked-about occurrence for followers. This represented an era that involved her understand major insights, in her career and personally. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she says. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in the East Coast, Sennott commenced creating and acting comedy while enrolled in performance at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
Sennott decided to act independently, performing at live shows with Ayo and posting uproarious (and distinctly) weird skits online. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed a group of women obsessively drawn to pregnancy; another portrayed working at the brand Hollister as akin to being stuck in a scary movie. By chance, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a religious event with hints of Uncut Gems. The big theme of her path, she says, has been people her own age supporting her, instead of the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, adding humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who had doubts regarding her previously will likely be regretting it today. As part of she describes as a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she appears to achieved an ideal role. A few years back she shared content titled “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she mocked Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a series about LA residents managing advantages of internet fame (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with downsides (your client being accused of being a drug-addled criminal, and perhaps becoming a unreliable persona non grata). One might easy to produce a program about digital influence that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that belittled at the characters. This show steers clear of each, making for a representation of advantaged millennial living that’s frank about the chaos and the glamour.
Nuanced Portrayal
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” 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
