Rachel Sennott joins the digital interview and right away launches into an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, seeming genuinely apologetic. She is only a bit behind, she wants to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, for a writer, this is precisely what is ideal to hear. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Those who have seen the boldly LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass movie Bottoms—which she collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in together with collaborator The Bear’s standout—will already know that Sennott holds plenty to say, be it about roles, relationships, or the merits of forming a high-school fight club. Plus, once you finish the latest multi-episode show I Love LA, it is clear that the star carries additional perspectives about the struggles of young adulthood (As a millennial, Sennott is an honorary member to younger audiences, straddling eras skilled for straddling different age groups).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
Parallels to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and the actress admits to being an admirer, citing it in addition to Sex and the City, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as influences for the project, which tracks the journey of a social media star Tallulah and ally who is also new representative portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the largest presence on the moodboard belonged to the HBO series, that show about a rising Hollywood star navigating in a gritty entertainment industry (choice quote: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott started watching it during COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and decided to put her own twist 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 concept for I Love LA emerged—in part—from her own, initially fractious, transition to Los Angeles and from the cosmic event, a popular phenomenon for enthusiasts. It was a time that involved her learn significant truths, in her career and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she admits. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Brought up in the East Coast, the star began developing and showcasing humor while pursuing acting at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. 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.”
Sennott decided to act independently, appearing at amateur nights with Edebiri and sharing hysterical (and very) bizarre online content digitally. One, Baby Cult, centered on several females obsessively fixated on having babies; another portrayed being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being trapped in a thriller. Interestingly, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of the intense thriller. The big theme of her path, she says, has been people her own age supporting her, instead of established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, continuing humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Rising Success
Those who had doubts about her then will surely be kicking themselves currently. In what she labels a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she appears to achieved an ideal role. Previously she posted a clip titled about Los Angeles online, in which she parodied film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with the co-writer) of a show about LA residents juggling benefits of digital stardom (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being suspected of being a drug-addled thief, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). Some could tempting to produce a series about digital influence that was extremely glamorous—or, more problematic, one that punched down at those depicted. I Love LA avoids both, creating a representation of affluent twentysomething living that’s candid about the chaos and the glamour.
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
