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Rachel Sennott joins the video call and right away begins an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, appearing genuinely remorseful. Despite being only a bit late, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Fortunately, during an interview, that’s exactly what one hopes to hear. Additionally, it’s pretty unsurprising. Those who have seen the unapologetically queer and unapologetically crass project titled Bottoms—which Sennott penned with her creative partner and starred in alongside close companion Ayo Edebiri—will be aware that Sennott possesses much to share, whether on gender, intimacy, or the appeal of starting a high-school fight club. Furthermore, once you finish the latest seasonal show titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star has further perspectives on the darker side of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, Sennott is a bridge of the gang, straddling eras skilled for bridging millennials and Gen Z).

Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, naming the show alongside the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as guides for I Love LA, which tracks the struggles of online personality Tallulah and close companion and aspiring agent Sennott’s character. However, the largest presence on concept went to the HBO series, that show focusing on an up-and-coming A-list actor making his way in a gritty LA scene (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott discovered it amid the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and decided to add a fresh perspective 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 explains. The concept for I Love LA came—in part—from her own, originally rocky, move to LA and from her cosmic event, a much-talked-about phenomenon for followers. This represented a time that included her understand significant truths, in her career and personally. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” 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 Connecticut, the star started developing and showcasing humor while pursuing theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

She decided to act independently, performing at live shows with her friend and sharing hysterical (and distinctly) weird online content on the internet. One, Baby Cult, centered on characters intensely fixated on motherhood; a different one envisioned being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being stuck in a horror film. By chance, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and ended up featuring in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her path, she says, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, rather than traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, adding amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Manifesting Dreams

Anyone who had doubts regarding her earlier will surely be feeling foolish now. In what she describes as a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she seems to have created her dream vehicle. In 2019 she posted content titled about Los Angeles on social media, in which she parodied film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a show about LA residents balancing benefits of internet fame (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being suspected of being a intoxicated stealer, and potentially becoming a unreliable pariah). It would be simple to produce a series about digital influence that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that mocked at the characters. I Love LA avoids both, making for a depiction of affluent twentysomething living that’s candid about the grot and the glamour.

Nuanced Portrayal

“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” 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