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Rachel Sennott appears on the video call and immediately launches into an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, appearing truly apologetic. She is only a bit delayed, she wants to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, in this context, this is just what one hopes to hear. Moreover, it’s pretty unsurprising. Anyone who have seen the fearlessly queer and outspoken movie titled Bottoms—that Sennott co-wrote with her creative partner and appeared in alongside collaborator the talented actress—can already know that she holds plenty to say, be it about gender, intimacy, or the appeal of starting a teen fight club. And, after watching her latest eight-part program I Love LA, it is clear that she has additional thoughts on the darker side of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she serves as an honorary member to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial adept for connecting both generations).

Influences and Artistic Direction

Parallels to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and the actress is a fan, referencing the show alongside the classic series, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as influences for I Love LA, which details the journey of a social media star Tallulah and close companion who is also fledgling representative Maia. However, the most significant spot on concept was reserved for the HBO series, that HBO sitcom about a rising celebrity succeeding in a corrupt LA scene (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott discovered it amid the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and resolved to put her own twist on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.

“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she says. The inspiration for the series came—to some extent—from firsthand, initially fractious, transition to Tinseltown and from her cosmic event, a much-talked-about event for followers. That period marked a phase that saw her learn some big truths, professionally and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” It was almost like these biblical tests …”

Starting Out

Growing up in New England, Sennott started creating and acting comedy while studying performance at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” 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, taking the stage at live shows with Edebiri and uploading uproarious (and distinctly) bizarre online content on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted characters fetishistically obsessed with motherhood; a different one portrayed being employed at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and ended up starring in her first film, Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a funeral gathering with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she says, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, rather than the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, continuing amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”

Career Breakthrough

Anyone who questioned about her previously will certainly be kicking themselves now. In what she describes as a “astonishingly complete” story, she seems to have achieved the perfect project. In 2019 she posted a clip called about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she parodied movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a show about city dwellers balancing the perks of internet fame (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being accused of being a drug-addled stealer, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). Some could easy to make a series about online fame that was extremely idealized—or, more problematic, one that mocked at its subjects. I Love LA avoids both, making for a portrait of advantaged millennial living that’s candid about the grot and the shine.

Nuanced Portrayal

“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