🔗 Share this article

Rachel Sennott appears on the video call and right away launches into an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, seeming really remorseful. Although she's only slightly late, she wants to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, during an interview, this is precisely what one hopes to encounter. Besides, it’s fairly expected. Viewers who have seen her unapologetically LGBTQ+ and outspoken movie Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with Emma Seligman and starred in alongside close companion The Bear’s standout—can already know that she holds a lot to discuss, ranging from on identity, sex, or the pros of starting a teen fight club. Plus, by the end her recent seasonal program I Love LA, viewers realize that the star carries further insights on the struggles of modern youth (At 30, Sennott is an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras skilled for connecting both generations).

Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach

Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and Sennott is enthusiastic, citing the show together with Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as guides for the project, which tracks the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and ally and fledgling talent manager Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the largest presence on concept belonged to the HBO series, the show focusing on a rising A-list actor navigating in a corrupt entertainment industry (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott began viewing it during the pandemic, became “hooked”, and chose to add a fresh perspective 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 inspiration for the series emerged—to some extent—from her own, originally fractious, move to LA and from her cosmic event, a popular phenomenon for astrology heads. It was a phase that involved her grasp significant insights, work-wise and personally. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she admits. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. It was almost like these biblical tests …”

Early Beginnings

Brought up in the East Coast, Sennott commenced developing and showcasing comedy while pursuing acting at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” 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?”

Sennott took matters into her own hands, appearing at live shows with her friend and sharing hilarious (and very) unconventional skits digitally. One, titled Baby Cult, followed a group of women intensely obsessed with having babies; a different one imagined working at a trendy retail outlet as like being stuck in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately appearing in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the intense thriller. The central motif of her career, she says, has been peers giving her a shot, instead of established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, stating amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”

Rising Success

Individuals who had doubts about Sennott previously will likely be feeling foolish now. In what she labels a “incredibly circular” story, she seems to have created the perfect project. Previously she posted a clip called about Los Angeles online, in which she mocked film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a show about city dwellers managing benefits of internet fame (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a intoxicated thief, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). One might easy to create a program about digital influence that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that mocked at those depicted. The series avoids both, creating a portrait of affluent twentysomething living that’s honest about the grot and the appeal.

Balanced Perspective

“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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