Rachel Sennott exploring the side-splitting comedy portraying that grotty appeal of younger generation lifestyle
The star enters the digital interview and right away launches into an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, appearing truly remorseful. Although she's only a bit delayed, she wants to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, in this context, that’s precisely what one hopes to experience. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Those who have seen the unapologetically LGBTQ+ and brash film Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with Emma Seligman and starred in alongside close companion the talented actress—would be aware that she possesses plenty to say, be it on gender, relationships, or the merits of starting a youth combat group. Furthermore, after watching the recent multi-episode show I Love LA, viewers realize that she holds even more insights about the challenges of young adulthood (As a millennial, she is an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras adept for straddling different age groups).
Influences and Artistic Direction
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and Sennott readily acknowledges an admirer, citing the show together with the HBO hit, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as guides for her series, which tracks the struggles of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also fledgling agent portrayed by Sennott. However, the largest spot on the moodboard was reserved for the popular sitcom, the show focusing on a rising celebrity making his way in a corrupt Hollywood (notable statement: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott discovered it during COVID-19, became “hooked”, and decided 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 explains. The idea for this project came—partly—from personal, at first difficult, move to LA and from the astrological phase, a much-talked-about phenomenon for enthusiasts. It was a phase that saw her grasp significant insights, professionally and personally. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she says. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Early Beginnings
Raised in Connecticut, Sennott started creating and acting comedy while studying theatre 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. “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 amateur nights with Edebiri and uploading hilarious (and distinctly) unconventional skits online. One, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females fetishistically fixated on motherhood; another imagined working at the brand Hollister as like being trapped in a scary movie. Interestingly, she encountered Seligman through NYU’s movie community and ended up featuring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the intense thriller. The central motif of her career, she explains, has been contemporaries supporting her, rather than the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, adding with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Rising Success
Those who had doubts regarding Sennott earlier will surely be feeling foolish now. As part of she labels a “astonishingly complete” story, she appears to manifested the perfect project. A few years back she shared a video called on LA life on social media, in which she mocked movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about city dwellers balancing advantages of online celebrity (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your associate being accused of being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). One might simple to make a program about online fame that was horribly aspirational—or, more problematic, one that mocked at its subjects. I Love LA steers clear of each, resulting in a depiction of advantaged millennial existence that’s honest about the mess 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 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