Rachel Sennott enters the video call and at once starts an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, seeming really regretful. Despite being only a couple of minutes late, she feels compelled to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, in this context, this is precisely what one hopes to encounter. Additionally, it’s pretty predictable. Anyone familiar with her fearlessly queer and outspoken project titled Bottoms—that she collaborated on with the director and featured in together with close companion the talented actress—can understand that she holds plenty to say, ranging from about roles, sex, or the appeal of starting a high-school fight club. And, by the end the recent eight-part program I Love LA, viewers realize that the star has further perspectives about the struggles of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, she represents an honorary member for this generation, a tale-end millennial with a knack for connecting both generations).
Inspirations and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and the actress admits to being a fan, citing the show in addition to the HBO hit, Insecure and Atlanta as inspirations for her series, which follows the travails of an influencer Tallulah and ally and fledgling agent Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the biggest influence on concept was reserved for the popular sitcom, that program focusing on an emerging A-list actor navigating in a gritty LA scene (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott discovered it throughout the pandemic, became “hooked”, and chose to add a fresh perspective on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she notes. The inspiration for I Love LA came—in part—from personal, initially difficult, relocation to Tinseltown and from the astrological phase, a much-talked-about phenomenon for followers. That period marked a phase that saw her learn major truths, professionally and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Early Beginnings
Growing up in the East Coast, the star started writing and performing stand-up while studying performance at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “None of the university plays cast me either.” “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
She seized control, performing at live shows with Edebiri and uploading uproarious (and decidedly) unconventional skits online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed several females obsessively drawn to pregnancy; a different one imagined working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she met Emma through the university’s film scene and ended up appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a funeral gathering with shades of the intense thriller. The big theme of her path, she notes, has been contemporaries supporting her, rather than the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, adding with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who questioned about Sennott then will surely be regretting it today. Through she describes as a “incredibly circular” development, she appears to manifested her dream vehicle. Previously she posted a video called about Los Angeles on social media, in which she lampooned film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a comedy about city dwellers managing benefits of online celebrity (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being accused of being a substance-abusing stealer, and possibly becoming a unreliable pariah). Some could easy to produce a series about internet celebrity that was overly aspirational—or, more problematic, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA avoids both, making for a representation of affluent millennial life that’s honest about the grot and the glamour.
Balanced Perspective
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
