Rachel Sennott exploring the hilarious comedy about the grotty allure of today's youth life
The star appears on the digital interview and at once starts an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, appearing truly regretful. Although she's only a bit behind, she wants to clarify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, in this context, that’s just what you want to encounter. Besides, it’s pretty predictable. Viewers familiar with her fearlessly openly gay and brash movie Bottoms—that Sennott penned with Emma Seligman and starred in alongside her friend The Bear’s standout—can be aware that Sennott holds a lot to say, be it on identity, intimacy, or the appeal of creating a high-school fight club. And, by the end her latest multi-episode show I Love LA, viewers realize that she has additional insights on the challenges of young adulthood (As a millennial, she serves as a bridge of the gang, straddling eras adept for bridging different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott is a fan, naming the show in addition to Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as inspirations for her series, which tracks the travails of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also fledgling representative Maia. Perhaps, the most significant presence on the moodboard was reserved for the HBO series, that program depicting an emerging celebrity succeeding in a corrupt LA scene (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott discovered it during lockdown, became “obsessed”, and chose to add a fresh perspective 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 notes. The inspiration for I Love LA came—partly—from firsthand, initially fractious, relocation to Los Angeles and from the saturn return, a popular occurrence for followers. That period marked a time that saw her understand significant truths, work-wise and personally. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she admits. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Raised in the East Coast, the star began developing and showcasing comedy while studying acting 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 explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. 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?”
Sennott decided to act independently, performing at open mics with Edebiri and posting uproarious (and decidedly) weird online content on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, centered on several females obsessively fixated on having babies; a different one envisioned being employed at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being caught in a horror film. By chance, she encountered Emma through NYU’s movie community and eventually appearing in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her career, she says, has been people her own age offering opportunities, as opposed to traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, adding amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Rising Success
Those who had doubts regarding Sennott previously will certainly be feeling foolish currently. Through she describes as a “wild, full-circle” story, she appears to created the perfect project. In 2019 she shared a video named “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she mocked film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a show about LA residents balancing the perks of online celebrity (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a substance-abusing stealer, and possibly becoming a unreliable pariah). Some could easy to produce a series about digital influence that was horribly glamorous—or, even less favorable, one that mocked at those depicted. This show does neither, creating a depiction of advantaged young adult life that’s frank about the mess and the appeal.
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