Rachel Sennott exploring her side-splitting show portraying the grotty glamour of younger generation lifestyle
The star enters the digital interview and at once begins an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, sounding truly remorseful. She is only slightly behind, she feels compelled to explain. “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, this is precisely what you want to experience. Additionally, it’s pretty predictable. Anyone who have seen the unapologetically LGBTQ+ and brash project titled Bottoms—that she penned with the director and starred in together with close companion the talented actress—will already know that Sennott has much to discuss, whether about identity, sex, or the merits of starting a high-school fight club. Plus, once you finish the recent eight-part show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star carries even more insights regarding the challenges of modern youth (Now in her thirties, Sennott serves as an honorary member for this generation, on the cusp skilled for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Inspirations and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and Sennott is a fan, referencing the show alongside the HBO hit, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as inspirations for her series, which tracks the journey of an influencer Tallulah and her friend and new agent portrayed by Sennott. However, the biggest spot on the moodboard belonged to the popular sitcom, that HBO sitcom depicting an emerging A-list actor succeeding in a corrupt Hollywood (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She started watching it throughout the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and chose to put her own twist on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she notes. The idea for I Love LA emerged—partly—from her own, at first fractious, relocation to Los Angeles and from the cosmic event, a much-talked-about occurrence for astrology heads. This represented a phase that involved her understand significant truths, in her career and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Growing up in the East Coast, Sennott began writing and performing comedy while enrolled in acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “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. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
She decided to act independently, appearing at amateur nights with her friend and sharing uproarious (and decidedly) weird skits on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, followed several females fetishistically drawn to motherhood; a different one imagined being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being stuck in a scary movie. Interestingly, she connected with Seligman through NYU’s movie community and eventually appearing in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a religious event with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she says, has been peers giving her a shot, instead of traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, continuing humorously: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Individuals who were skeptical regarding Sennott previously will certainly be regretting it currently. In what she labels a “wild, full-circle” development, she appears to created her dream vehicle. A few years back she posted a video titled on LA life online, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a comedy about city dwellers balancing benefits of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being suspected of being a drug-addled stealer, and perhaps becoming a unreliable persona non grata). It would be easy to produce a program about digital influence that was overly idealized—or, worse, one that punched down at the characters. I Love LA does neither, resulting in a portrait of advantaged millennial living that’s frank about the grot and the shine.
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 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