Rachel Sennott joins the video call and immediately starts an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, seeming really regretful. She is only a couple of minutes delayed, she feels compelled to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s just what you want to encounter. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Anyone familiar with her unapologetically openly gay and unapologetically crass film Bottoms—which she penned with the director and starred in with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—would be aware that she holds much to discuss, whether on identity, intimacy, or the pros of forming a teen fight club. And, by the end her recent multi-episode HBO series I Love LA, viewers realize that the star carries further perspectives about the darker side of Gen Z life (As a millennial, Sennott serves as an honorary member of the gang, a tale-end millennial skilled for bridging both generations).
Influences and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and Sennott readily acknowledges a fan, naming it together with the classic series, Insecure and Atlanta as influences for the project, which tracks the struggles of an influencer Tallulah and close companion and aspiring representative portrayed by Sennott. However, the largest influence on concept belonged to the popular sitcom, the show focusing on a rising A-list actor succeeding in an often-seedy entertainment industry (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it throughout lockdown, became “captivated”, and resolved to create a new version 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 notes. The inspiration for the series came—partly—from firsthand, initially fractious, relocation to Los Angeles and from her astrological phase, a popular phenomenon for followers. It was an era that involved her grasp major truths, professionally and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she admits. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in New England, the star commenced writing and performing humor while studying acting at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “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. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at amateur nights with Ayo and uploading hysterical (and decidedly) bizarre skits on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, followed a group of women fetishistically obsessed with having babies; another envisioned being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being trapped in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she met Seligman through NYU’s movie community and ended up starring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a religious event with echoes of the intense thriller. The central motif of her path, she explains, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, instead of traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she repeats, continuing humorously: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Career Breakthrough
Individuals who were skeptical about her then will surely be regretting it now. Through she describes as a “wild, full-circle” story, she appears to manifested an ideal role. A few years back she shared a clip called about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she mocked film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about Angelenos balancing benefits of online celebrity (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being accused of being a drug-addled thief, and potentially becoming a risky outcast). It would be simple to create a program about online fame that was overly glamorous—or, worse, one that mocked at its subjects. This show avoids both, making for a representation of privileged millennial living that’s honest about the grot and the glamour.
Balanced Perspective
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
