Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and immediately begins an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, appearing really regretful. She is only a couple of minutes delayed, she wants to justify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s precisely what one hopes to encounter. Moreover, it’s quite unsurprising. Those familiar with the boldly LGBTQ+ and outspoken project Bottoms—that she collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in together with close companion Ayo Edebiri—would already know that she possesses much to discuss, whether about roles, intimacy, or the pros of forming a teen fight club. Furthermore, after watching her latest eight-part program titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she has additional perspectives about the challenges of modern youth (As a millennial, Sennott serves as an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras adept for connecting different age groups).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and Sennott is an admirer, naming the show alongside the classic series, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as influences for I Love LA, which follows the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also aspiring representative Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the largest spot on creative vision was reserved for the HBO series, the show focusing on an emerging A-list actor succeeding in a corrupt Hollywood (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott started watching it amid the pandemic, became “hooked”, and resolved to put her own twist on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she explains. The idea for this project originated—to some extent—from firsthand, at first difficult, relocation to LA and from the saturn return, a frequently discussed phenomenon for enthusiasts. It was an era that saw her understand some big life lessons, in her career and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Starting Out
Brought up in New England, Sennott commenced developing and showcasing humor while studying theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “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. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott seized control, performing at live shows with Ayo and posting hilarious (and very) unconventional online content on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, followed a group of women fetishistically fixated on pregnancy; another imagined being employed at a trendy retail outlet as like being stuck in a thriller. By chance, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately appearing in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a religious event with echoes of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her career, she says, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, as opposed to traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, continuing humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Rising Success
Anyone who were skeptical about her earlier will surely be regretting it now. As part of she calls a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she appears to manifested her dream vehicle. A few years back she uploaded a video titled about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a series about LA residents managing benefits of online celebrity (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being labeled as being a drug-addled stealer, and possibly becoming a unreliable pariah). Some could simple to create a program about internet celebrity that was horribly idealized—or, more problematic, one that mocked at its subjects. The series avoids both, making for a portrait of advantaged millennial living that’s frank about the chaos and the shine.
Empathetic Approach
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
