Rachel Sennott exploring the side-splitting series about that chaotic allure of younger generation existence
The performer appears on the video call and at once starts an explanation. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, sounding truly remorseful. Despite being only slightly late, she feels compelled to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, in this context, that’s precisely what you want to encounter. Additionally, it’s pretty unsurprising. Anyone familiar with the fearlessly queer and brash movie Bottoms—that she co-wrote with her creative partner and starred in together with collaborator The Bear’s standout—can already know that she possesses plenty to discuss, be it on gender, relationships, or the appeal of forming a youth brawl society. Plus, by the end the new seasonal program titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she has even more thoughts on the challenges of Gen Z life (At 30, Sennott represents a bridge to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial skilled for bridging different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and Sennott is an admirer, naming it in addition to the classic series, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as influences for I Love LA, which details the travails of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and new talent manager portrayed by Sennott. Notably, the largest influence on the moodboard went to Entourage, the show depicting a rising A-list actor making his way in a gritty entertainment industry (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She started watching it amid lockdown, became “captivated”, and decided to create a new version 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 explains. The idea for the series came—partly—from firsthand, at first difficult, relocation to Tinseltown and from the astrological phase, a popular phenomenon for enthusiasts. That period marked a time that saw her grasp significant 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. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Humble Origins
Raised in Connecticut, Sennott started developing and showcasing comedy while pursuing acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott seized control, appearing at amateur nights with her friend and sharing hysterical (and distinctly) bizarre online content online. One, Baby Cult, followed several females obsessively fixated on having babies; another imagined being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being caught in a thriller. By chance, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and ultimately appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a religious event with hints of the intense thriller. The big theme of her journey, she says, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, rather than established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, adding humorously: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who had doubts about Sennott then will certainly be regretting it currently. In what she calls a “incredibly circular” development, she seems to have manifested the perfect project. A few years back she shared a video titled about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she lampooned movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a show about Angelenos juggling the perks of internet fame (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being labeled as being a drug-addled thief, and perhaps becoming a unreliable persona non grata). Some could easy to create a series about internet celebrity that was extremely aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA steers clear of each, resulting in a depiction of advantaged twentysomething life that’s frank about the mess and the appeal.
Empathetic Approach
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” she observes. “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