🔗 Share this article

Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and right away starts an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, appearing truly remorseful. Despite being only slightly late, she wants to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, for a writer, this is exactly what is ideal to encounter. Additionally, it’s pretty predictable. Viewers who know her boldly queer and brash movie Bottoms—which she penned with her creative partner and featured in with her friend the talented actress—would already know that she has plenty to share, whether about identity, relationships, or the merits of forming a youth combat group. Furthermore, once you finish the recent eight-part show titled I Love LA, it is clear that she holds further perspectives regarding the challenges of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, she is an honorary member for this generation, on the cusp skilled for connecting different age groups).

Guiding Lights and Creative Vision

Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and the actress is enthusiastic, naming the show alongside the classic series, Insecure and the innovative program as inspirations for the project, which follows the struggles of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and aspiring representative Sennott’s character. However, the biggest presence on the moodboard went to Entourage, the show depicting an up-and-coming Hollywood star navigating in a gritty entertainment industry (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She started watching it amid COVID-19, became “hooked”, and decided to create a new version on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.

“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she notes. The idea for the series originated—in part—from her own, initially difficult, relocation to LA and from the astrological phase, a popular occurrence for followers. This represented a time that saw her learn major truths, professionally and personally. “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…”

Humble Origins

Brought up in Connecticut, Sennott commenced creating and acting comedy while pursuing performance at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

She seized control, taking the stage at open mics with Edebiri and uploading uproarious (and very) unconventional comedy videos digitally. One, Baby Cult, depicted a group of women obsessively fixated on motherhood; a different one envisioned working at the brand Hollister as similar to being stuck in a thriller. By chance, she encountered Seligman through NYU’s movie community and ended up featuring in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a religious event with echoes of the intense thriller. The big theme of her career, she explains, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, instead of traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, adding humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”

Career Breakthrough

Those who questioned regarding Sennott earlier will certainly be regretting it today. Through she labels a “astonishingly complete” development, she has manifested the perfect project. In 2019 she uploaded a video titled “it’s LA” online, in which she parodied movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Now, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a comedy about Angelenos juggling advantages of digital stardom (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being labeled as being a substance-abusing stealer, and perhaps becoming a risky outcast). It would be simple to produce a show about internet celebrity that was extremely aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at those depicted. The series does neither, making for a depiction of advantaged young adult existence that’s candid about the grot and the glamour.

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