Rachel Sennott enters the video call and at once starts an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, sounding truly apologetic. She is only a couple of minutes late, she needs to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, for a writer, that’s just what you want to hear. Additionally, it’s pretty expected. Viewers familiar with the boldly LGBTQ+ and outspoken movie titled Bottoms—that she collaborated on with the director and appeared in alongside collaborator Ayo Edebiri—can already know that Sennott holds a lot to share, whether about roles, sex, or the appeal of starting a high-school fight club. Plus, once you finish the new eight-part show I Love LA, viewers realize that the star holds additional insights about the darker side of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, Sennott is an honorary member of the gang, on the cusp adept for straddling both generations).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and Sennott is an admirer, citing it in addition to Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as influences for her series, which tracks the struggles of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also aspiring agent Maia. Perhaps, the most significant influence on the moodboard was reserved for the HBO series, the program about an emerging Hollywood star succeeding in a gritty entertainment industry (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott discovered it during COVID-19, became “captivated”, and chose to put her own twist on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she notes. The inspiration for I Love LA originated—partly—from her own, at first fractious, transition to LA and from the saturn return, a frequently discussed occurrence for astrology heads. It was a time that involved her grasp some big life lessons, in her career and individually. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in Connecticut, the star began creating and acting comedy while enrolled in theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at live shows with her friend and posting uproarious (and very) unconventional online content on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted a group of women obsessively fixated on pregnancy; a different one envisioned being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being stuck in a thriller. By chance, she connected with Emma through the university’s film scene and ultimately appearing in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her path, she notes, has been peers supporting her, as opposed to the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, stating amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who questioned about her earlier will surely be regretting it now. Through she calls a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she seems to have created an ideal role. A few years back she uploaded content called “it’s LA” online, in which she parodied movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a show about city dwellers balancing advantages of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being suspected of being a substance-abusing criminal, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). It would be tempting to make a show about internet celebrity that was extremely idealized—or, worse, one that punched down at the characters. The series steers clear of each, creating a depiction of privileged young adult existence that’s honest about the grot and the glamour.
Nuanced Portrayal
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
