Rachel Sennott enters the video call and right away begins an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, sounding really regretful. She is only a bit behind, she wants to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, during an interview, that’s exactly what one hopes to experience. Besides, it’s pretty unsurprising. Viewers familiar with her unapologetically LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass movie titled Bottoms—which she penned with the director and starred in together with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—would be aware that she holds much to share, ranging from about identity, intimacy, or the pros of starting a youth brawl society. Plus, after watching the new seasonal program titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she holds additional thoughts about the darker side of Gen Z life (As a millennial, she serves as a relatable figure for this generation, straddling eras with a knack for straddling both generations).
Inspirations and Artistic Direction
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and Sennott is a fan, naming the show together with Sex and the City, Insecure and the innovative program as influences for the project, which tracks the travails of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and new talent manager Sennott’s character. Notably, the most significant influence on concept belonged to Entourage, the program about an emerging celebrity making his way in a corrupt entertainment industry (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She began viewing it amid COVID-19, became “captivated”, and chose to put her own twist 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 explains. The inspiration for this project emerged—in part—from personal, at first rocky, transition to Los Angeles and from the astrological phase, a much-talked-about phenomenon for enthusiasts. That period marked an era that involved her learn major life lessons, work-wise and personally. “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…”
Humble Origins
Brought up in Connecticut, the star started creating and acting comedy while enrolled in theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “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. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, appearing at open mics with her friend and posting uproarious (and decidedly) bizarre skits online. A particular video, Baby Cult, centered on several females intensely obsessed with motherhood; another portrayed working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being trapped in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and eventually starring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a Jewish wake with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her journey, she explains, has been contemporaries supporting her, rather than the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, continuing humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Rising Success
Anyone who were skeptical regarding her previously will certainly be regretting it today. Through she calls a “astonishingly complete” story, she appears to achieved the perfect project. In 2019 she shared a video named “it’s LA” online, in which she mocked Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a show about Angelenos juggling the perks of internet fame (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being labeled as being a drug-addled stealer, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). Some could tempting to produce a series about internet celebrity that was horribly idealized—or, more problematic, one that mocked at its subjects. The series steers clear of each, creating a portrait of advantaged millennial living that’s candid about the mess and the appeal.
Balanced Perspective
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
