Rachel Sennott on her side-splitting comedy about that messy allure of today's youth lifestyle

The star enters the digital interview and immediately starts an explanation. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, sounding really remorseful. She is only slightly delayed, she needs to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Thankfully, in this context, that’s exactly what you want to experience. Moreover, it’s quite predictable. Viewers who have seen her unapologetically openly gay and brash movie Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with Emma Seligman and starred in together with her friend the talented actress—will understand that Sennott holds much to discuss, ranging from on identity, intimacy, or the merits of starting a high-school fight club. Plus, once you finish her new seasonal program I Love LA, it is clear that she holds additional insights on the struggles of young adulthood (At 30, Sennott is a relatable figure of the gang, a tale-end millennial skilled for connecting different age groups).

Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and the actress readily acknowledges an admirer, citing the show together with the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as influences for her series, which tracks the travails of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and ally and new representative portrayed by Sennott. Notably, the biggest presence on concept belonged to the popular sitcom, that program about an emerging Hollywood star navigating in a gritty Hollywood (choice quote: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She discovered it throughout lockdown, became “hooked”, and decided to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.

“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The concept for I Love LA originated—in part—from personal, originally fractious, move to Los Angeles and from her astrological phase, a frequently discussed event for followers. This represented a time that included her understand some big life lessons, professionally and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Humble Origins

Raised in Connecticut, Sennott began creating and acting humor while studying performance at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “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. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”

Sennott took matters into her own hands, appearing at amateur nights with Ayo and uploading hysterical (and very) unconventional comedy videos on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted a group of women fetishistically fixated on motherhood; a different one portrayed working at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being trapped in a thriller. By chance, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and eventually starring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the intense thriller. The central motif of her path, she says, has been peers supporting her, rather than traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, stating humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Career Breakthrough

Individuals who had doubts regarding Sennott earlier will likely be kicking themselves currently. Through she describes as a “wild, full-circle” story, she has created her dream vehicle. A few years back she uploaded a clip titled on LA life online, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a show about LA residents managing benefits of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being accused of being a intoxicated stealer, and possibly becoming a risky persona non grata). Some could tempting to make a program about digital influence that was extremely idealized—or, worse, one that belittled at those depicted. I Love LA does neither, making for a portrait of privileged twentysomething existence that’s candid about the mess and the glamour.

Nuanced Portrayal

“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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

Joseph Gill
Joseph Gill

Elara Vance is a tech analyst and digital strategist with over a decade of experience in emerging technologies and innovation consulting.