Rachel Sennott on the hilarious comedy portraying the messy appeal of younger generation life

The star appears on the online meeting and immediately begins an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, seeming truly apologetic. She is only slightly behind, she wants to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Fortunately, in this context, this is precisely what one hopes to encounter. Additionally, it’s fairly unsurprising. Anyone familiar with the boldly queer and outspoken project Bottoms—that Sennott penned with Emma Seligman and starred in together with close companion the talented actress—can understand that Sennott holds much to discuss, be it about roles, intimacy, or the merits of forming a high-school combat group. And, once you finish her new multi-episode program titled I Love LA, it is clear that she carries additional thoughts about the struggles of young adulthood (At 30, she is a relatable figure of the gang, straddling eras adept for bridging both generations).

Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach

Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and Sennott is enthusiastic, citing it alongside Sex and the City, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as influences for her series, which tracks the struggles of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also new talent manager Maia. Perhaps, the biggest presence on creative vision was reserved for Entourage, that show depicting an up-and-coming Hollywood star making his way in a corrupt LA scene (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She discovered it during the pandemic, became “hooked”, and decided to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.

“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The concept for this project emerged—to some extent—from her own, at first fractious, move to LA and from the cosmic event, a popular occurrence for enthusiasts. It was an era that involved her grasp significant insights, in her career and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”

Humble Origins

Brought up in New England, the star started creating and acting comedy while pursuing theatre at a prestigious arts school. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she explains. “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 decided to act independently, performing at open mics with Ayo and posting uproarious (and decidedly) bizarre skits on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed a group of women fetishistically obsessed with having babies; another envisioned working at the brand Hollister as similar to being caught in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she met Emma through the university’s film scene and eventually appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a Jewish wake with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her career, she explains, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, as opposed to traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, stating with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”

Manifesting Dreams

Individuals who had doubts regarding her previously will surely be regretting it today. In what she labels a “incredibly circular” story, she has created an ideal role. Previously she posted a video titled on LA life on the internet, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a series about LA residents juggling benefits of digital stardom (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being accused of being a intoxicated criminal, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). Some could tempting to make a program about internet celebrity that was overly idealized—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at its subjects. The series avoids both, resulting in a representation of affluent twentysomething life that’s frank about the mess and the glamour.

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 observes. “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

Douglas Stewart
Douglas Stewart

A digital strategist with over a decade of experience in crafting effective online campaigns and user-centric web designs.