Rachel Sennott joins the video call and at once launches into an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, seeming truly apologetic. Although she's only a couple of minutes behind, she feels compelled to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, for a writer, that’s exactly what one hopes to encounter. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Anyone familiar with her boldly openly gay and unapologetically crass project titled Bottoms—which she penned with the director and appeared in with her friend The Bear’s standout—would already know that she holds much to discuss, be it about roles, intimacy, or the pros of creating a high-school combat group. Plus, once you finish her new multi-episode show I Love LA, viewers realize that she has even more insights regarding the struggles of modern youth (At 30, Sennott represents a relatable figure to younger audiences, straddling eras skilled for connecting millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and the actress is a fan, naming the show together with Sex and the City, Insecure and the innovative program as influences for I Love LA, which follows the journey of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also new talent manager portrayed by Sennott. However, the biggest presence on concept belonged to the popular sitcom, the show about an up-and-coming A-list actor navigating in a gritty Hollywood (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She began viewing it throughout the pandemic, became “captivated”, and decided to add a fresh perspective on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she explains. The concept for I Love LA emerged—in part—from her own, originally difficult, relocation to Tinseltown and from her cosmic event, a much-talked-about phenomenon for followers. That period marked a phase that saw her grasp major life lessons, in her career and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she says. “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 the East Coast, the star began writing and performing humor while enrolled in theatre at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “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 took matters into her own hands, performing at open mics with her friend and uploading uproarious (and very) bizarre online content on the internet. One, Baby Cult, depicted several females obsessively drawn to pregnancy; another portrayed being employed at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being trapped in a thriller. By chance, she connected with Emma through NYU’s movie community and eventually featuring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her path, she explains, has been contemporaries supporting her, instead of the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, stating with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who were skeptical about Sennott earlier will certainly be regretting it today. In what she labels a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she appears to created her dream vehicle. A few years back she posted a video named “it’s LA” online, in which she parodied movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a show about Angelenos managing advantages of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being labeled as being a intoxicated thief, and potentially becoming a unreliable outcast). One might easy to produce a show about online fame that was extremely idealized—or, even less favorable, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA does neither, making for a portrait of privileged twentysomething living that’s candid about the mess and the shine.
Nuanced Portrayal
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
