The actress and writer on her uproarious series about that chaotic allure of Gen Z life
Rachel Sennott joins the video call and immediately begins an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, sounding really regretful. Despite being only a bit late, she wants to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Thankfully, during an interview, that’s just what is ideal to experience. Additionally, it’s pretty unsurprising. Viewers familiar with the unapologetically openly gay and brash movie Bottoms—that she co-wrote with her creative partner and featured in together with her friend the talented actress—will understand that she possesses a lot to share, whether about gender, sex, or the merits of starting a youth combat group. And, by the end the recent multi-episode show titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she carries further thoughts on the struggles of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, Sennott is a relatable figure of the gang, a tale-end millennial with a knack for bridging different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and the actress is a fan, naming it alongside Sex and the City, Insecure and the innovative program as inspirations for her series, which details the travails of online personality Tallulah and ally who is also aspiring agent Maia. Perhaps, the most significant spot on the moodboard belonged to Entourage, the program depicting an up-and-coming A-list actor navigating in an often-seedy LA scene (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott discovered it during lockdown, became “obsessed”, and resolved to put her own twist on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The inspiration for the series originated—in part—from personal, at first rocky, relocation to Los Angeles and from her astrological phase, a frequently discussed phenomenon for followers. This represented a phase that involved her learn some big truths, in her career and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Growing up in New England, Sennott started creating and acting stand-up while enrolled in performance at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “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. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She seized control, performing at amateur nights with Ayo and posting hilarious (and very) weird skits on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed a group of women obsessively drawn to having babies; another imagined working at the brand Hollister as similar to being trapped in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Emma through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a religious event with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she explains, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, rather than established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, stating with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who questioned regarding Sennott previously will certainly be kicking themselves currently. In what she describes as a “wild, full-circle” development, she appears to manifested an ideal role. A few years back she uploaded content called on LA life on the internet, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a show about city dwellers managing benefits of internet fame (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being labeled as being a intoxicated thief, and perhaps becoming a unreliable outcast). Some could easy to make a program about digital influence that was extremely idealized—or, worse, one that mocked at those depicted. The series avoids both, making for a portrait of advantaged twentysomething life that’s honest about the chaos and the appeal.
Empathetic Approach
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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