Rachel Sennott exploring the side-splitting show depicting the messy appeal of Gen Z lifestyle
The star joins the video call and immediately starts an explanation. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, seeming genuinely remorseful. She is only a couple of minutes late, she needs to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Thankfully, for a writer, that’s exactly what you want to experience. Besides, it’s quite unsurprising. Viewers familiar with her boldly queer and brash film titled Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with the director and appeared in alongside close companion the talented actress—would already know that she holds much to share, whether about gender, relationships, or the pros of starting a teen brawl society. And, once you finish her recent multi-episode show titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star has further thoughts on the struggles of young adulthood (As a millennial, she serves as an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras skilled for connecting different age groups).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and Sennott is a fan, referencing the show alongside Sex and the City, Insecure and Atlanta as inspirations for the project, which tracks the travails of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also fledgling representative Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the biggest influence on concept was reserved for the HBO series, that show depicting an emerging celebrity making his way in an often-seedy Hollywood (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She began viewing it during lockdown, became “hooked”, 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 concept for the series originated—partly—from her own, originally difficult, relocation to Los Angeles and from the saturn return, a frequently discussed event for followers. It was a time that included her understand significant truths, in her career and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she says. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Starting Out
Raised in New England, Sennott commenced writing and performing comedy while enrolled in theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
Sennott decided to act independently, taking the stage at amateur nights with Edebiri and sharing hilarious (and very) weird comedy videos on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, followed several females fetishistically drawn to motherhood; a different one envisioned working at the brand Hollister as akin to being trapped in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ended up featuring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a religious event with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she notes, has been people her own age giving her a shot, instead of traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, continuing humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Individuals who questioned about her then will certainly be kicking themselves now. Through she calls a “incredibly circular” development, she has achieved the perfect project. In 2019 she uploaded a video called “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she mocked film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a comedy about city dwellers juggling benefits of internet fame (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being accused of being a substance-abusing criminal, and possibly becoming a unreliable pariah). It would be simple to produce a show about online fame that was extremely glamorous—or, more problematic, one that mocked at the characters. This show does neither, making for a portrait of affluent twentysomething existence that’s candid about the grot and the glamour.
Balanced Perspective
“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