Rachel Sennott exploring her uproarious show depicting that grotty glamour of today's youth lifestyle

The star enters the online meeting and at once starts an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, sounding genuinely remorseful. Although she's only a couple of minutes delayed, she feels compelled to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, in this context, that’s precisely what you want to experience. Besides, it’s quite predictable. Anyone who know the fearlessly LGBTQ+ and outspoken movie titled Bottoms—that Sennott collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in together with her friend The Bear’s standout—can already know that Sennott has plenty to discuss, be it about identity, relationships, or the appeal of starting a teen brawl society. Plus, by the end her new multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she has additional insights on the struggles of young adulthood (As a millennial, she represents an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras adept for connecting both generations).

Influences and Artistic Direction

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and Sennott readily acknowledges an admirer, citing it alongside the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as influences for I Love LA, which tracks the travails of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also new agent Maia. Notably, the most significant presence on the moodboard was reserved for Entourage, that HBO sitcom about an up-and-coming celebrity succeeding in a corrupt LA scene (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it throughout COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and resolved to create a new version 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 originated—to some extent—from personal, at first difficult, move to Los Angeles and from the saturn return, a frequently discussed occurrence for astrology heads. That period marked an era that saw her grasp some big truths, work-wise and in private life. “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.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Early Beginnings

Brought up in New England, Sennott commenced writing and performing humor while studying performance 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. 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.”

Sennott decided to act independently, taking the stage at live shows with her friend and posting uproarious (and very) weird online content online. One, titled Baby Cult, followed several females fetishistically obsessed with having babies; another portrayed working at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she connected with Emma through NYU’s movie community and ended up appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a religious event with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her journey, she explains, has been people her own age supporting her, instead of established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she repeats, continuing amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”

Career Breakthrough

Those who questioned about her then will certainly be regretting it currently. In what she describes as a “astonishingly complete” story, she has achieved her dream vehicle. A few years back she uploaded a clip called “it’s LA” online, in which she mocked movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about city dwellers managing benefits of digital stardom (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being accused of being a intoxicated thief, and potentially becoming a risky outcast). One might tempting to make a program about internet celebrity that was overly glamorous—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at its subjects. I Love LA steers clear of each, resulting in a portrait of privileged millennial living that’s frank about the grot and the glamour.

Empathetic Approach

“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