Rachel Sennott enters the video call and at once starts an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, appearing really apologetic. Despite being only a couple of minutes behind, she wants to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Fortunately, for a writer, that’s exactly what you want to hear. Additionally, it’s pretty predictable. Anyone who know her fearlessly LGBTQ+ and brash film Bottoms—which she collaborated on with the director and appeared in with collaborator the talented actress—would be aware that Sennott holds much to say, ranging from on identity, intimacy, or the pros of forming a youth fight club. Furthermore, by the end her recent seasonal HBO series I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she holds additional thoughts on the darker side of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she is a bridge for this generation, a tale-end millennial adept for straddling different age groups).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and Sennott readily acknowledges enthusiastic, citing it alongside the HBO hit, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for I Love LA, which details the journey of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion and new representative Sennott’s character. However, the biggest presence on creative vision was reserved for Entourage, the show about a rising A-list actor making his way in a gritty Hollywood (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott started watching it amid lockdown, became “hooked”, and chose to create a new version 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 explains. The concept for the series originated—in part—from her own, initially fractious, relocation to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a frequently discussed occurrence for astrology heads. That period marked a phase that saw her understand some big life lessons, in her career and in private life. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she admits. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Starting Out
Raised in Connecticut, Sennott started creating and acting humor while studying performance at a prestigious arts school. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she says. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, performing at live shows with Ayo and uploading hilarious (and decidedly) unconventional comedy videos digitally. A particular video, Baby Cult, centered on characters obsessively drawn to pregnancy; another portrayed being employed at a trendy retail outlet as like being stuck in a horror film. Interestingly, she met Seligman through NYU’s movie community and ultimately starring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the intense thriller. The central motif of her journey, she explains, has been people her own age offering opportunities, instead of the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, stating with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who had doubts about her previously will surely be kicking themselves currently. In what she labels a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she has manifested her dream vehicle. A few years back she uploaded content called about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she mocked film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a show about city dwellers managing benefits of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being suspected of being a substance-abusing stealer, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). Some could tempting to create a show about internet celebrity that was overly aspirational—or, more problematic, one that belittled at those depicted. I Love LA avoids both, making for a representation of affluent twentysomething life that’s honest about the mess 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 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
