Rachel Sennott enters the video call and immediately starts an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, sounding genuinely regretful. She is only a bit delayed, she wants to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, for a writer, that’s precisely what you want to encounter. Moreover, it’s fairly expected. Those familiar with her fearlessly openly gay and unapologetically crass project titled Bottoms—which she collaborated on with her creative partner and featured in together with her friend the talented actress—would be aware that she holds a lot to discuss, ranging from on roles, relationships, or the merits of forming a youth fight club. Furthermore, after watching the latest seasonal show titled I Love LA, it is clear that she holds further perspectives regarding the challenges of young adulthood (As a millennial, Sennott represents an honorary member for this generation, on the cusp skilled for connecting different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott readily acknowledges an admirer, referencing it alongside Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and the innovative program as inspirations for the project, which follows the travails of a social media star Tallulah and close companion and aspiring representative Maia. However, the most significant influence on creative vision was reserved for Entourage, that program about a rising Hollywood star succeeding in a gritty LA scene (choice quote: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She started watching it during COVID-19, became “captivated”, and decided to create a new version on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The idea for I Love LA emerged—in part—from personal, originally fractious, transition to Tinseltown and from the saturn return, a much-talked-about occurrence for astrology heads. This represented an era that included her understand significant truths, professionally and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Growing up in Connecticut, Sennott commenced developing and showcasing humor while studying theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. 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 live shows with her friend and uploading hysterical (and very) bizarre skits digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted several females obsessively fixated on pregnancy; another envisioned working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being caught in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Emma through campus film circles and ended up starring in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a religious event with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her path, she says, has been contemporaries supporting her, instead of the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she repeats, continuing amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who had doubts about her earlier will certainly be regretting it today. Through she describes as a “incredibly circular” story, she has achieved an ideal role. In 2019 she shared a video called about Los Angeles on social media, in which she mocked movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a comedy about city dwellers managing advantages of online celebrity (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your client being accused of being a drug-addled stealer, and possibly becoming a risky persona non grata). One might easy to make a program about online fame that was horribly glamorous—or, even less favorable, one that mocked at its subjects. This show does neither, resulting in a depiction of affluent young adult existence that’s candid about the chaos and the glamour.
Balanced Perspective
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
