🔗 Share this article

Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and immediately starts an explanation. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, appearing really apologetic. Although she's only a couple of minutes late, she needs to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, during an interview, that’s precisely what one hopes to experience. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Those familiar with the fearlessly queer and outspoken film titled Bottoms—that Sennott collaborated on with the director and featured in with close companion Ayo Edebiri—will be aware that she holds a lot to discuss, be it on roles, relationships, or the appeal of forming a teen combat group. Furthermore, after watching her recent eight-part HBO series I Love LA, it is clear that the star carries even more perspectives on the challenges of young adulthood (At 30, Sennott is a bridge for this generation, a tale-end millennial with a knack for straddling both generations).

Inspirations and Artistic Direction

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and the actress readily acknowledges an admirer, citing it together with the classic series, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as influences for the project, which details the struggles of online personality Tallulah and close companion and fledgling representative portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the largest spot on creative vision belonged to the popular sitcom, the show focusing on an up-and-coming A-list actor navigating in a gritty entertainment industry (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott started watching it during lockdown, became “captivated”, and chose to create a new version on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.

“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she notes. The idea for I Love LA emerged—to some extent—from her own, originally fractious, transition to Tinseltown and from the astrological phase, a popular event for enthusiasts. This represented a time that involved her grasp significant life lessons, in her career and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”

Humble Origins

Brought up in the East Coast, the star commenced developing and showcasing humor while pursuing acting at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “I wondered why I was even there at all.”

She decided to act independently, appearing at live shows with Edebiri and posting hilarious (and decidedly) unconventional online content digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females fetishistically fixated on pregnancy; a different one envisioned being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being caught in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she met Emma through campus film circles and eventually featuring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her career, she notes, has been contemporaries supporting her, as opposed to established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, stating with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”

Rising Success

Anyone who had doubts regarding Sennott then will certainly be kicking themselves today. As part of she calls a “wild, full-circle” story, she seems to have created an ideal role. In 2019 she shared content titled on LA life on the internet, in which she mocked movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about LA residents balancing advantages of online celebrity (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being labeled as being a drug-addled stealer, and potentially becoming a unreliable persona non grata). Some could simple to create a series about online fame that was overly aspirational—or, more problematic, one that belittled at its subjects. I Love LA steers clear of each, creating a portrait of advantaged young adult living that’s honest about the mess and the glamour.

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 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