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Rachel Sennott joins the online meeting and immediately launches into an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, seeming genuinely regretful. Despite being only a couple of minutes delayed, she wants to justify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, in this context, that’s precisely what is ideal to encounter. Additionally, it’s fairly expected. Those who know her unapologetically LGBTQ+ and outspoken film titled Bottoms—which she co-wrote with the director and featured in alongside her friend The Bear’s standout—will understand that she holds a lot to share, be it on gender, sex, or the pros of creating a high-school fight club. And, once you finish the latest multi-episode HBO series I Love LA, viewers realize that the star has additional insights about the challenges of Gen Z life (As a millennial, she is an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras with a knack for bridging both generations).

Guiding Lights and Creative Vision

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress readily acknowledges a fan, referencing the show alongside Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and the innovative program as inspirations for the project, which follows the journey of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also aspiring representative Maia. Perhaps, the biggest spot on creative vision went to the popular sitcom, the program focusing on an up-and-coming Hollywood star making his way in a corrupt LA scene (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She discovered it throughout lockdown, became “captivated”, and resolved 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 idea for I Love LA came—to some extent—from personal, initially fractious, move to LA and from the saturn return, a popular occurrence for enthusiasts. This represented a phase that saw her learn some big life lessons, professionally and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”

Early Beginnings

Raised in Connecticut, Sennott started writing and performing comedy while studying acting at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” 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. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

She decided to act independently, taking the stage at live shows with Ayo and sharing uproarious (and distinctly) unconventional skits online. One, Baby Cult, followed several females intensely fixated on pregnancy; a different one envisioned working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ended up featuring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a funeral gathering with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her journey, she explains, has been people her own age supporting her, as opposed to the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, continuing amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”

Career Breakthrough

Individuals who questioned regarding Sennott then will certainly be feeling foolish now. In what she labels a “astonishingly complete” development, she appears to created an ideal role. A few years back she posted a video named on LA life on social media, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a series about city dwellers managing advantages of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a substance-abusing thief, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). Some could easy to create a program about online fame that was extremely aspirational—or, worse, one that mocked at those depicted. The series avoids both, resulting in a depiction of privileged young adult living that’s candid about the grot and the glamour.

Nuanced Portrayal

“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