Rachel Sennott exploring her hilarious show about the messy allure of Gen Z existence
The star enters the online meeting and immediately launches into an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, seeming really regretful. She is only a bit late, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, during an interview, this is just what you want to experience. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Viewers familiar with her unapologetically openly gay and outspoken movie Bottoms—that Sennott penned with the director and starred in together with collaborator The Bear’s standout—can already know that she holds plenty to discuss, whether on identity, intimacy, or the appeal of forming a youth fight club. And, by the end her new seasonal show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star has further perspectives regarding the struggles of modern youth (At 30, Sennott represents a bridge to younger audiences, on the cusp skilled for straddling different age groups).
Influences and Creative Vision
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and Sennott is a fan, naming it in addition to the HBO hit, the acclaimed comedy and the innovative program as influences for the project, which tracks the travails of online personality Tallulah and ally and aspiring agent Maia. However, the biggest presence on concept was reserved for the popular sitcom, that HBO sitcom depicting a rising A-list actor succeeding in a corrupt entertainment industry (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She discovered it during the pandemic, became “captivated”, and chose to create a new version on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she notes. The concept for I Love LA emerged—in part—from firsthand, initially rocky, relocation to Los Angeles and from the saturn return, a popular phenomenon for astrology heads. That period marked an era that saw her grasp major life lessons, professionally and personally. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Growing up in the East Coast, the star commenced developing and showcasing stand-up while studying theatre at a prestigious arts school. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” 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 decided to act independently, performing at open mics with Edebiri and posting hilarious (and very) weird comedy videos on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed characters intensely obsessed with motherhood; a different one imagined being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being stuck in a horror film. By chance, she connected with Emma through campus film circles and eventually featuring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her path, she notes, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, rather than established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, adding with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who questioned about her then will surely be kicking themselves today. As part of she describes as a “astonishingly complete” story, she appears to manifested an ideal role. In 2019 she shared a video named on LA life on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a show about city dwellers balancing benefits of internet fame (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your associate being suspected of being a substance-abusing stealer, and possibly becoming a unreliable outcast). It would be tempting to produce a program about internet celebrity that was overly glamorous—or, more problematic, one that belittled at the characters. I Love LA steers clear of each, resulting in a depiction of privileged millennial living that’s honest about the chaos and the shine.
Nuanced Portrayal
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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