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Rachel Sennott joins the video call and right away begins an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, sounding really remorseful. Despite being only a bit delayed, she wants to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, in this context, this is just what is ideal to encounter. Additionally, it’s pretty predictable. Those who have seen her fearlessly LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—that Sennott penned with the director and featured in with her friend the talented actress—will be aware that she has plenty to share, whether on identity, sex, or the pros of creating a high-school brawl society. Furthermore, after watching her recent eight-part program I Love LA, viewers realize that she has even more insights about the darker side of modern youth (Now in her thirties, she is an honorary member for this generation, a tale-end millennial skilled for straddling both generations).

Inspirations and Creative Vision

Likenesses to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott is a fan, citing it together with the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for the project, which follows the travails of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion and fledgling representative Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the biggest presence on concept went to the popular sitcom, the show focusing on a rising Hollywood star succeeding in a corrupt LA scene (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She began viewing it during lockdown, became “obsessed”, and chose to create a new version on it “for the girls and the gays”.

“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she says. The inspiration for I Love LA came—in part—from firsthand, at first difficult, relocation to Tinseltown and from the astrological phase, a frequently discussed occurrence for followers. This represented a time that saw her learn some big truths, in her career and individually. “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.” It was almost like these biblical tests …”

Starting Out

Brought up in New England, the star commenced creating and acting humor while enrolled in theatre at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “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. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”

She seized control, taking the stage at live shows with Edebiri and sharing hilarious (and decidedly) unconventional online content digitally. One, Baby Cult, centered on several females fetishistically drawn to having babies; a different one imagined being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being caught in a scary movie. Interestingly, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and ended up appearing in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the intense thriller. The central motif of her path, she explains, has been people her own age offering opportunities, as opposed to traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, stating with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Rising Success

Individuals who were skeptical regarding Sennott previously will likely be feeling foolish today. As part of she describes as a “astonishingly complete” story, she has created an ideal role. Previously she posted a clip named “it’s LA” online, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about city dwellers managing the perks of digital stardom (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your friend being labeled as being a drug-addled criminal, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). Some could easy to create a series about internet celebrity that was overly aspirational—or, more problematic, one that mocked at the characters. The series does neither, making for a portrait of advantaged twentysomething life that’s honest about the chaos and the shine.

Empathetic Approach

“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