Rachel Sennott appears on the digital interview and right away starts an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, appearing genuinely regretful. She is 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!” Fortunately, for a writer, this is precisely what one hopes to experience. Additionally, it’s quite unsurprising. Viewers who have seen the unapologetically LGBTQ+ and outspoken film Bottoms—that she penned with Emma Seligman and starred in with her friend Ayo Edebiri—would be aware that Sennott holds much to share, be it about identity, sex, or the appeal of forming a high-school brawl society. Furthermore, by the end her new eight-part HBO series titled I Love LA, viewers realize that the star carries further insights about the darker side of Gen Z life (As a millennial, Sennott serves as a bridge for this generation, straddling eras with a knack for straddling different age groups).
Influences and Artistic Direction
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress admits to being a fan, referencing the show together with Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as influences for I Love LA, which tracks the struggles of a social media star Tallulah and her friend who is also fledgling representative Sennott’s character. Notably, the largest influence on concept went to the HBO series, that HBO sitcom focusing on a rising celebrity succeeding in a corrupt entertainment industry (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott started watching it throughout COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and decided to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she says. The idea for the series came—in part—from her own, at first fractious, move to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a frequently discussed phenomenon for followers. It was a time that involved her grasp some big insights, work-wise and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” 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…”
Humble Origins
Raised in New England, the star began developing and showcasing comedy while studying performance at a prestigious arts school. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
She decided to act independently, taking the stage at amateur nights with Edebiri and uploading hysterical (and very) weird online content digitally. One, Baby Cult, centered on several females intensely obsessed with having babies; another portrayed being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being stuck in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and ended up appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a religious event with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her career, she says, has been people her own age offering opportunities, rather than the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, continuing amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Individuals who had doubts about Sennott then will likely be kicking themselves currently. As part of she describes as a “incredibly circular” story, she has manifested an ideal role. In 2019 she uploaded a clip named about Los Angeles on social media, in which she parodied movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about Angelenos juggling benefits of internet fame (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your client being labeled as being a intoxicated criminal, and potentially becoming a unreliable pariah). One might tempting to make a series about digital influence that was extremely glamorous—or, even less favorable, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA does neither, making for a representation of advantaged twentysomething life that’s candid about the grot and the appeal.
Nuanced Portrayal
“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
