Rachel Sennott appears on the online meeting and immediately starts an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, appearing genuinely apologetic. She is only a couple of minutes delayed, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, in this context, this is exactly what is ideal to encounter. Besides, it’s quite unsurprising. Viewers who have seen her unapologetically queer and unapologetically crass project titled Bottoms—that she penned with Emma Seligman and featured in alongside close companion The Bear’s standout—would already know that Sennott has a lot to say, ranging from on gender, intimacy, or the merits of creating a teen fight club. Furthermore, by the end her recent seasonal show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she has even more perspectives on the struggles of modern youth (As a millennial, she represents an honorary member of the gang, on the cusp adept for connecting both generations).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and the actress readily acknowledges an admirer, referencing it alongside Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as inspirations for her series, which details the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also new agent Sennott’s character. Notably, the most significant spot on concept was reserved for Entourage, the program focusing on a rising celebrity making his way in a gritty LA scene (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott began viewing it throughout lockdown, became “captivated”, and decided 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 says. The inspiration for this project emerged—to some extent—from firsthand, at first difficult, move to LA and from the astrological phase, a popular phenomenon for enthusiasts. That period marked an era that involved her learn some big insights, in her career and personally. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Starting Out
Brought up in Connecticut, Sennott commenced creating and acting humor while pursuing 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 states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. 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, taking the stage at live shows with Ayo and sharing uproarious (and decidedly) weird skits digitally. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed characters intensely obsessed with motherhood; another imagined being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being caught in a horror film. By chance, she connected with Seligman through the university’s film scene and ended up featuring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a Jewish wake with shades of the intense thriller. The central motif of her path, she notes, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, as opposed to the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, continuing amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who questioned regarding Sennott earlier will likely be kicking themselves now. In what she labels a “incredibly circular” development, she seems to have created her dream vehicle. In 2019 she shared a video titled “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she mocked film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s a lead creator (with the co-writer) of a comedy about Angelenos balancing the perks of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being accused of being a drug-addled criminal, and possibly becoming a risky pariah). One might tempting to create a program about online fame that was overly idealized—or, more problematic, one that belittled at the characters. The series does neither, creating a depiction of affluent twentysomething living that’s honest about the chaos and the shine.
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 says. “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
