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Rachel Sennott appears on the online meeting and at once begins an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, sounding really remorseful. Although she's only a bit late, she feels compelled to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s just what you want to encounter. Besides, it’s quite predictable. Viewers who know the unapologetically LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—that she co-wrote with Emma Seligman and appeared in with close companion the talented actress—would already know that Sennott holds a lot to discuss, whether on roles, relationships, or the appeal of starting a high-school combat group. Plus, once you finish the recent multi-episode program titled I Love LA, it is clear that she carries additional thoughts regarding the challenges of modern youth (Now in her thirties, Sennott represents an honorary member to younger audiences, on the cusp adept for bridging different age groups).

Inspirations and Artistic Direction

Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott readily acknowledges enthusiastic, naming it together with the HBO hit, Insecure and the innovative program as guides for I Love LA, which follows the journey of an influencer Tallulah and ally who is also fledgling agent Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the biggest spot on concept belonged to Entourage, that program depicting an up-and-coming Hollywood star navigating in an often-seedy Hollywood (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott began viewing it during the pandemic, became “captivated”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective 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 I Love LA came—to some extent—from firsthand, initially difficult, relocation to LA and from her astrological phase, a popular occurrence for enthusiasts. This represented an era that involved her grasp some big life lessons, professionally and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she says. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Humble Origins

Raised in Connecticut, the star began developing and showcasing humor while pursuing acting at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she says. “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. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

She decided to act independently, appearing at open mics with her friend and uploading hilarious (and decidedly) weird comedy videos online. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted several females intensely drawn to pregnancy; another envisioned being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being caught in a thriller. Interestingly, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ended up featuring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her journey, she says, has been people her own age offering opportunities, instead of the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, adding humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Rising Success

Anyone who had doubts regarding her earlier will surely be feeling foolish today. In what she describes as a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she seems to have created her dream vehicle. Previously she shared content titled about Los Angeles online, in which she mocked Hollywood trailers (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about Angelenos managing benefits of online celebrity (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your client being labeled as being a drug-addled criminal, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). Some could easy to create a series about internet celebrity that was overly aspirational—or, worse, one that mocked at its subjects. I Love LA steers clear of each, creating a portrait of affluent millennial living that’s honest about the grot and the appeal.

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