🔗 Share this article

Rachel Sennott joins the video call and immediately starts an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, appearing genuinely remorseful. Although she's only a bit late, she wants to clarify. “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, during an interview, this is exactly what is ideal to hear. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Viewers who know her unapologetically LGBTQ+ and outspoken movie Bottoms—that Sennott collaborated on with Emma Seligman and appeared in together with her friend The Bear’s standout—will already know that she holds plenty to say, ranging from about roles, intimacy, or the merits of forming a youth combat group. Plus, by the end her new eight-part HBO series titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she holds further perspectives on the struggles of young adulthood (As a millennial, Sennott represents an honorary member for this generation, on the cusp with a knack for connecting both generations).

Inspirations and Artistic Direction

Likenesses to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being an admirer, citing it alongside the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as influences for her series, which follows the struggles of online personality Tallulah and ally and new talent manager portrayed by Sennott. However, the most significant spot on the moodboard belonged to Entourage, that program about an up-and-coming Hollywood star succeeding in a gritty LA scene (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She discovered it throughout COVID-19, became “hooked”, and chose to add a fresh perspective on it “for the girls and the gays”.

“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she notes. The inspiration for this project emerged—in part—from her own, at first rocky, move to Tinseltown and from the saturn return, a popular phenomenon for enthusiasts. This represented a phase that involved her understand significant truths, professionally 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.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Early Beginnings

Brought up in New England, the star started creating and acting comedy while pursuing performance at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. 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 seized control, taking the stage at live shows with her friend and uploading uproarious (and very) weird comedy videos on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted characters intensely drawn to having babies; a different one portrayed working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and eventually starring in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she says, has been people her own age supporting her, rather than the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, continuing amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Manifesting Dreams

Those who questioned regarding her previously will surely be regretting it today. As part of she describes as a “incredibly circular” story, she seems to have manifested the perfect project. In 2019 she uploaded a clip called “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she lampooned film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a series about city dwellers juggling advantages of online celebrity (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with downsides (your friend being labeled as being a substance-abusing thief, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). It would be simple to make a show about internet celebrity that was horribly idealized—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at the characters. This show avoids both, creating a representation of privileged twentysomething living 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 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