Rachel Sennott enters the digital interview and immediately begins an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, sounding really apologetic. Although she's only slightly behind, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, in this context, that’s precisely what you want to experience. Moreover, it’s pretty expected. Those who know her fearlessly queer and outspoken movie titled Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with her creative partner and featured in with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—will understand that she has a lot to say, ranging from on roles, relationships, or the appeal of creating a teen fight club. Plus, once you finish the latest multi-episode show titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she has additional insights on the challenges of modern youth (Now in her thirties, she represents a relatable figure to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial with a knack for bridging both generations).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
Parallels to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and the actress readily acknowledges an admirer, naming it together with Sex and the City, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as guides for I Love LA, which tracks the journey of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also fledgling agent Sennott’s character. Notably, the largest presence on concept went to the popular sitcom, that show focusing on an up-and-coming A-list actor making his way in a corrupt Hollywood (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott began viewing it during lockdown, became “captivated”, and decided to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she notes. The concept for the series came—in part—from her own, at first rocky, transition to Los Angeles and from her astrological phase, a popular phenomenon for astrology heads. This represented a time that involved her understand some big life lessons, work-wise and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “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
Growing up in the East Coast, Sennott commenced creating and acting humor while pursuing theatre at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. 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.”
She took matters into her own hands, performing at live shows with Edebiri and uploading hilarious (and distinctly) weird online content online. One, titled Baby Cult, followed several females fetishistically fixated on motherhood; a different one envisioned working at the brand Hollister as similar to being caught in a horror film. By chance, she connected with Emma through NYU’s movie community and ultimately appearing in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a funeral gathering with shades of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her path, she says, has been peers offering opportunities, rather than traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, adding with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who were skeptical about her earlier will likely be feeling foolish today. In what she calls a “incredibly circular” development, she seems to have achieved the perfect project. A few years back she uploaded a clip titled “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she mocked movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with the co-writer) of a comedy about city dwellers juggling advantages of internet fame (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your client being accused of being a drug-addled stealer, and possibly becoming a unreliable persona non grata). It would be tempting to produce a series about internet celebrity that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that mocked at the characters. The series steers clear of each, making for a portrait of advantaged twentysomething existence that’s honest about the grot and the glamour.
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 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
