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Rachel Sennott enters the digital interview and immediately starts an explanation. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, seeming genuinely regretful. She is only a bit delayed, she wants to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Fortunately, in this context, that’s precisely what is ideal to hear. Additionally, it’s quite predictable. Anyone familiar with her fearlessly queer and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in with her friend the talented actress—would already know that she holds a lot to share, be it on identity, relationships, or the merits of creating a high-school brawl society. And, by the end the recent seasonal show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star holds additional insights on the struggles of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, she is a relatable figure of the gang, straddling eras with a knack for bridging millennials and Gen Z).

Influences and Creative Vision

Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and Sennott admits to being an admirer, naming the show together with Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for I Love LA, which details the journey of online personality Tallulah and close companion and aspiring talent manager Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the most significant spot on creative vision went to Entourage, that HBO sitcom focusing on a rising celebrity navigating in an often-seedy entertainment industry (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott started watching it during the pandemic, 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 notes. The idea for the series came—in part—from firsthand, at first fractious, relocation to LA and from her saturn return, a popular occurrence for enthusiasts. This represented an era that included her grasp significant life lessons, professionally and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Humble Origins

Raised in New England, Sennott started writing and performing humor while enrolled in acting at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”

Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at live shows with Edebiri and uploading hysterical (and distinctly) bizarre comedy videos online. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed characters obsessively obsessed with motherhood; another portrayed being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being trapped in a thriller. By chance, she encountered Emma through campus film circles and ended up starring in her first film, Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her career, she says, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, as opposed to established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she confirms, stating humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”

Rising Success

Anyone who had doubts regarding Sennott previously will surely be regretting it now. In what she calls a “wild, full-circle” story, she has achieved her dream vehicle. Previously she posted a video named on LA life on social media, in which she lampooned film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about Angelenos managing benefits of internet fame (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your friend being suspected of being a substance-abusing thief, and perhaps becoming a unreliable pariah). Some could tempting to make a show about internet celebrity that was horribly idealized—or, more problematic, one that mocked at those depicted. The series does neither, making for a depiction of privileged young adult life that’s frank about the grot and the appeal.

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