Rachel Sennott appears on the digital interview and immediately starts an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, sounding truly remorseful. She is only slightly delayed, she wants to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, for a writer, this is just what you want to encounter. Moreover, it’s fairly predictable. Those familiar with her unapologetically queer and brash film Bottoms—that Sennott co-wrote with her creative partner and featured in with close companion the talented actress—will be aware that she holds a lot to discuss, whether on roles, intimacy, or the appeal of creating a high-school fight club. And, once you finish the latest eight-part program I Love LA, viewers realize that she carries further insights about the struggles of Gen Z life (As a millennial, Sennott represents a relatable figure to younger audiences, on the cusp skilled for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and Sennott readily acknowledges enthusiastic, referencing the show together with Sex and the City, Insecure and Atlanta as guides for the project, which follows the struggles of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also aspiring talent manager Sennott’s character. Notably, the biggest influence on the moodboard belonged to the popular sitcom, the HBO sitcom about an emerging A-list actor making his way in a corrupt Hollywood (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott discovered it during COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and chose to add a fresh perspective on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she notes. The inspiration for the series came—in part—from personal, originally fractious, move to LA and from her astrological phase, a popular occurrence for enthusiasts. This represented a phase that involved her learn some big truths, work-wise and individually. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she says. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Starting Out
Brought up in Connecticut, the star commenced creating and acting stand-up while studying acting at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she explains. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She decided to act independently, appearing at live shows with Ayo and posting uproarious (and distinctly) weird online content online. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted characters fetishistically drawn to pregnancy; another imagined working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being trapped in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Emma through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a religious event with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her journey, she notes, has been contemporaries supporting her, as opposed to the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, stating amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Rising Success
Anyone who had doubts regarding Sennott previously will likely be feeling foolish now. In what she labels a “wild, full-circle” development, she seems to have manifested the perfect project. Previously she shared a video called about Los Angeles online, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a comedy about LA residents balancing advantages of digital stardom (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being suspected of being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). Some could easy to create a series about internet celebrity that was overly glamorous—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at its subjects. I Love LA avoids both, resulting in a representation of affluent millennial existence that’s candid about the mess and the appeal.
Nuanced Portrayal
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” 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
