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Rachel Sennott enters the digital interview and right away starts an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, appearing truly regretful. Although she's only a bit late, she feels compelled to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, during an interview, this is precisely what one hopes to experience. Besides, it’s quite unsurprising. Those familiar with her fearlessly queer and unapologetically crass movie Bottoms—which she co-wrote with her creative partner and starred in alongside collaborator Ayo Edebiri—can understand that Sennott has plenty to share, whether about gender, relationships, or the pros of creating a teen brawl society. Plus, once you finish the latest multi-episode show titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star carries additional thoughts on the struggles of modern youth (As a millennial, Sennott is an honorary member of the gang, on the cusp with a knack for connecting both generations).

Inspirations and Creative Vision

Parallels to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, citing the show together with the classic series, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as guides for I Love LA, which follows the journey of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also fledgling agent Maia. Notably, the biggest influence on the moodboard was reserved for Entourage, the show about a rising A-list actor making his way in a corrupt LA scene (choice quote: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott discovered it throughout the pandemic, became “captivated”, 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 explains. The concept for I Love LA originated—partly—from personal, initially difficult, transition to Los Angeles and from her saturn return, a much-talked-about event for astrology heads. That period marked a phase that involved her grasp significant insights, work-wise and personally. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she says. “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

Brought up in New England, Sennott began developing and showcasing stand-up while enrolled in performance at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “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?”

She took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at amateur nights with Edebiri and sharing uproarious (and very) unconventional comedy videos digitally. One, titled Baby Cult, followed several females obsessively fixated on motherhood; a different one envisioned working at the brand Hollister as similar to being trapped in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a religious event with echoes of the intense thriller. The central motif of her journey, she explains, has been peers offering opportunities, rather than the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, adding amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”

Career Breakthrough

Those who were skeptical about Sennott earlier will certainly be feeling foolish today. As part of she labels a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she seems to have achieved an ideal role. In 2019 she shared a video named “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she mocked movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a series about Angelenos juggling advantages of online celebrity (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a substance-abusing criminal, and potentially becoming a risky outcast). One might easy to make a program about internet celebrity that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that punched down at its subjects. The series does neither, creating a depiction of advantaged millennial living that’s frank about the chaos and the glamour.

Nuanced Portrayal

“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