Rachel Sennott appears on the online meeting and immediately begins an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, appearing genuinely remorseful. Although she's only a couple of minutes late, she wants to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Thankfully, for a writer, this is exactly what you want to encounter. Besides, it’s quite predictable. Viewers who have seen the fearlessly queer and outspoken movie Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with the director and starred in alongside her friend The Bear’s standout—can be aware that Sennott possesses much to discuss, whether on roles, sex, or the pros of creating a teen brawl society. Plus, after watching her new seasonal show titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she has additional perspectives about the darker side of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, she is an honorary member to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial with a knack for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Inspirations and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, referencing it alongside the HBO hit, Insecure and Atlanta as inspirations for the project, which tracks the struggles of online personality Tallulah and her friend and aspiring talent manager Maia. Perhaps, the most significant spot on creative vision was reserved for Entourage, the program depicting a rising celebrity navigating in a corrupt LA scene (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She started watching it amid COVID-19, became “captivated”, and resolved to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she explains. The inspiration for I Love LA came—to some extent—from her own, at first fractious, relocation to Los Angeles and from the cosmic event, a much-talked-about phenomenon for enthusiasts. It was an era that involved her grasp major life lessons, work-wise 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.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in New England, Sennott started creating and acting comedy while studying acting at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at open mics with Ayo and posting hilarious (and very) unconventional online content digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted a group of women obsessively fixated on pregnancy; a different one imagined being employed at a trendy retail outlet as like being caught in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Emma through the university’s film scene and ended up featuring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a Jewish wake with hints of the intense thriller. The big theme of her journey, she explains, has been peers giving her a shot, rather than established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, adding amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Rising Success
Those who had doubts about her earlier will likely be kicking themselves currently. In what she describes as a “astonishingly complete” story, she has achieved the perfect project. Previously she posted a clip called “it’s LA” on social media, in which she mocked movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about LA residents managing benefits of internet fame (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your associate being labeled as being a substance-abusing thief, and perhaps becoming a unreliable persona non grata). One might tempting to make a series about digital influence that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that punched down at those depicted. I Love LA avoids both, making for a representation of affluent twentysomething existence that’s honest about the chaos and the appeal.
Empathetic Approach
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
