Rachel Sennott appears on the video call and at once begins an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, appearing genuinely apologetic. Despite being only slightly late, she wants to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Fortunately, during an interview, that’s precisely what you want to encounter. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Viewers familiar with her boldly LGBTQ+ and brash project titled Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with her creative partner and featured in alongside collaborator the talented actress—will be aware that Sennott holds plenty to share, whether about identity, intimacy, or the pros of creating a teen fight club. Furthermore, after watching the recent eight-part program titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star has even more insights about the darker side of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, Sennott serves as an honorary member for this generation, a tale-end millennial skilled for straddling different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and the actress readily acknowledges enthusiastic, referencing the show in addition to the HBO hit, the acclaimed comedy and the innovative program as influences for the project, which follows the travails of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and aspiring agent Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the most significant presence on creative vision went to Entourage, that show depicting an up-and-coming Hollywood star succeeding in a corrupt Hollywood (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it amid lockdown, became “hooked”, and chose to create a new version 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 explains. The concept for this project emerged—in part—from her own, at first fractious, transition to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a popular event for astrology heads. It was an era that involved her understand significant insights, work-wise and personally. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Early Beginnings
Growing up in the East Coast, Sennott commenced writing and performing comedy while studying theatre at a prestigious arts school. “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 took matters into her own hands, appearing at live shows with Edebiri and posting hysterical (and distinctly) unconventional skits online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females fetishistically fixated on having babies; a different one envisioned working at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being caught in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Emma through the university’s film scene and eventually appearing in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her path, she notes, has been people her own age offering opportunities, as opposed to the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she repeats, adding with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who had doubts regarding her previously will certainly be feeling foolish currently. Through she describes as a “incredibly circular” story, she seems to have created her dream vehicle. In 2019 she shared a clip called on LA life on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about Angelenos balancing benefits of online celebrity (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your client being suspected of being a drug-addled thief, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). It would be easy to create a series about digital influence that was overly idealized—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at its subjects. The series steers clear of each, creating a portrait of privileged young adult living that’s honest about the grot and the glamour.
Empathetic Approach
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
