🔗 Share this article

Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and right away begins an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, seeming genuinely apologetic. She is only slightly delayed, she needs to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Fortunately, for a writer, this is exactly what one hopes to hear. Additionally, it’s pretty expected. Those familiar with her boldly LGBTQ+ and outspoken film Bottoms—which Sennott penned with her creative partner and featured in alongside close companion The Bear’s standout—would be aware that Sennott holds much to say, be it on gender, relationships, or the pros of forming a youth fight club. And, after watching the latest multi-episode show I Love LA, viewers realize that she holds further insights about the darker side of modern youth (As a millennial, she represents an honorary member of the gang, a tale-end millennial with a knack for bridging both generations).

Influences and Storytelling Approach

Likenesses to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being a fan, citing the show together with Sex and the City, Insecure and the innovative program as inspirations for I Love LA, which follows the journey of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also new representative Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the biggest presence on the moodboard went to Entourage, the HBO sitcom focusing on an up-and-coming celebrity navigating in an often-seedy entertainment industry (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott started watching it amid COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and decided to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.

“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she says. The idea for this project emerged—in part—from firsthand, originally rocky, move to Tinseltown and from her cosmic event, a frequently discussed phenomenon for astrology heads. This represented an era that involved her understand some big insights, in her career and in private life. “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…”

Early Beginnings

Growing up in the East Coast, the star began creating and acting comedy while enrolled in acting at a prestigious arts school. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

She decided to act independently, appearing at live shows with Edebiri and uploading uproarious (and decidedly) weird online content online. One, Baby Cult, followed characters intensely drawn to pregnancy; another envisioned being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being trapped in a scary movie. By chance, she met Seligman through NYU’s movie community and ended up appearing in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a religious event with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her journey, she explains, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, instead of the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she confirms, stating with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Career Breakthrough

Anyone who questioned about her previously will surely be regretting it currently. In what she describes as a “wild, full-circle” story, she appears to achieved an ideal role. Previously she uploaded content called “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a show about Angelenos managing advantages of online celebrity (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being labeled as being a drug-addled stealer, and perhaps becoming a unreliable pariah). It would be simple to make a show about internet celebrity that was overly aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at those depicted. This show avoids both, making for a representation of privileged twentysomething existence that’s frank about the grot and the shine.

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