🔗 Share this article

Rachel Sennott enters the video call and at once launches into an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, seeming genuinely apologetic. Although she's only a bit late, she feels compelled to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s just what you want to hear. Additionally, it’s fairly predictable. Those who know the fearlessly openly gay and brash project Bottoms—that she penned with her creative partner and starred in alongside her friend Ayo Edebiri—will already know that Sennott holds plenty to discuss, be it about roles, sex, or the pros of starting a teen fight club. Furthermore, by the end the new eight-part program I Love LA, it is clear that she holds additional insights regarding the struggles of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, Sennott represents a relatable figure to younger audiences, on the cusp skilled for connecting millennials and Gen Z).

Guiding Lights and Creative Vision

Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and the actress admits to being enthusiastic, citing it alongside the classic series, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as influences for her series, which tracks the journey of a social media star Tallulah and ally and new agent portrayed by Sennott. Notably, the biggest spot on concept belonged to Entourage, the show depicting an up-and-coming Hollywood star making his way in an often-seedy Hollywood (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott discovered it amid COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and chose 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 concept for I Love LA originated—partly—from firsthand, originally rocky, move to LA and from her astrological phase, a much-talked-about event for enthusiasts. This represented a phase that saw her learn some big life lessons, professionally and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “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

Growing up in New England, Sennott began writing and performing stand-up while enrolled in acting at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at live shows with Edebiri and sharing hilarious (and decidedly) bizarre skits on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, followed a group of women fetishistically fixated on pregnancy; a different one imagined being employed at a trendy retail outlet as like being caught in a thriller. By chance, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and eventually featuring in her first film, Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a Jewish wake with shades of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her career, she explains, has been peers giving her a shot, rather than traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, continuing with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”

Career Breakthrough

Anyone who were skeptical about her then will likely be regretting it today. Through she describes as a “wild, full-circle” development, she appears to achieved the perfect project. In 2019 she uploaded content titled about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she lampooned film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a show about city dwellers juggling the perks of online celebrity (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being labeled as being a substance-abusing criminal, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). One might easy to create a show about digital influence that was overly glamorous—or, more problematic, one that belittled at those depicted. The series avoids both, making for a portrait of advantaged young adult life that’s honest about the mess and the glamour.

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 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