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Rachel Sennott joins the digital interview and at once launches into an explanation. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, sounding truly apologetic. Despite being only a bit delayed, she wants to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Thankfully, in this context, this is just what you want to encounter. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Those familiar with the boldly LGBTQ+ and brash film Bottoms—that she penned with Emma Seligman and featured in with her friend the talented actress—can be aware that Sennott possesses much to discuss, whether about gender, relationships, or the pros of creating a youth fight club. Plus, once you finish the latest multi-episode program titled I Love LA, viewers realize that the star holds even more perspectives about the challenges of Gen Z life (At 30, Sennott serves as an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras adept for connecting millennials and Gen Z).

Inspirations and Creative Vision

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and the actress readily acknowledges enthusiastic, citing it alongside Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as influences for her series, which tracks the struggles of a social media star Tallulah and her friend and fledgling talent manager Maia. Perhaps, the largest spot on creative vision was reserved for the popular sitcom, the HBO sitcom depicting an up-and-coming celebrity succeeding in an often-seedy Hollywood (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it during the pandemic, became “hooked”, and chose to add a fresh perspective on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.

“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she notes. The idea for this project emerged—in part—from personal, originally difficult, relocation to Los Angeles and from the astrological phase, a frequently discussed occurrence for astrology heads. That period marked an era that included her learn significant truths, in her career and in private life. “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. It was almost like these biblical tests …”

Early Beginnings

Brought up in the East Coast, Sennott commenced developing and showcasing humor while enrolled in acting 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?”

Sennott took matters into her own hands, performing at amateur nights with Edebiri and posting hilarious (and very) weird comedy videos digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed characters intensely fixated on pregnancy; a different one imagined being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she encountered Emma through the university’s film scene and eventually featuring in her first film, Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her path, she notes, has been peers giving her a shot, rather than the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she confirms, continuing humorously: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”

Manifesting Dreams

Anyone who had doubts about Sennott earlier will certainly be regretting it currently. In what she labels a “astonishingly complete” story, she has achieved the perfect project. In 2019 she shared content named on LA life on the internet, in which she mocked Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about LA residents juggling the perks of online celebrity (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being suspected of being a substance-abusing thief, and perhaps becoming a unreliable outcast). One might easy to produce a program about digital influence that was overly aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA avoids both, creating a portrait of advantaged twentysomething life that’s frank about the grot and the shine.

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