Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and at once launches into an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, sounding genuinely regretful. Despite being only slightly late, she wants to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, in this context, this is just what one hopes to experience. Additionally, it’s quite expected. Anyone familiar with her boldly LGBTQ+ and brash movie titled Bottoms—that she collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in together with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—would be aware that she holds a lot to say, ranging from about gender, intimacy, or the pros of creating a youth brawl society. Plus, after watching the recent eight-part show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star has even more insights regarding the struggles of modern youth (Now in her thirties, Sennott is a relatable figure for this generation, straddling eras with a knack for connecting both generations).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and the actress readily acknowledges enthusiastic, referencing the show together with the classic series, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for her series, which follows the travails of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also aspiring talent manager Sennott’s character. Notably, the largest spot on creative vision was reserved for Entourage, the HBO sitcom depicting an emerging celebrity succeeding in a corrupt entertainment industry (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it during the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and resolved to create a new version 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 idea for the series came—in part—from firsthand, at first fractious, relocation to Los Angeles and from the astrological phase, a much-talked-about occurrence for astrology heads. It was an era that involved her grasp major truths, work-wise and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Early Beginnings
Raised in the East Coast, Sennott began creating and acting comedy while pursuing performance at NYU’s Tisch. “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. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She took matters into her own hands, performing at live shows with Edebiri and posting hysterical (and decidedly) weird online content online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed several females obsessively obsessed with having babies; another envisioned working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she met Emma through campus film circles and eventually featuring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of Uncut Gems. A recurring idea of her journey, she explains, has been peers giving her a shot, instead of traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, stating humorously: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who had doubts about Sennott then will surely be regretting it now. As part of she calls a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she seems to have created an ideal role. Previously she shared a video called on LA life on the internet, in which she parodied movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a series about city dwellers balancing advantages of internet fame (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being labeled as being a intoxicated thief, and perhaps becoming a unreliable pariah). Some could easy to produce a show about internet celebrity that was overly idealized—or, worse, one that mocked at the characters. This show does neither, resulting in a depiction of privileged young adult life that’s candid about the chaos and the appeal.
Balanced Perspective
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” she says. “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
