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Rachel Sennott joins the video call and right away begins an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, sounding really regretful. She is only slightly late, she needs to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, for a writer, this is exactly what you want to encounter. Additionally, it’s pretty expected. Viewers who have seen the fearlessly LGBTQ+ and brash film Bottoms—that she co-wrote with Emma Seligman and appeared in together with close companion The Bear’s standout—would understand that Sennott possesses much to share, be it on roles, relationships, or the merits of forming a high-school combat group. And, by the end the recent multi-episode program I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she carries even more thoughts regarding the darker side of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, Sennott represents a bridge to younger audiences, straddling eras with a knack for straddling millennials and Gen Z).

Guiding Lights and Creative Vision

Likenesses to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and the actress readily acknowledges an admirer, naming the show together with the HBO hit, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as guides for the project, which follows the struggles of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and aspiring representative portrayed by Sennott. However, the most significant influence on the moodboard went to Entourage, that show depicting an up-and-coming celebrity making his way in a gritty entertainment industry (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott started watching it throughout COVID-19, became “captivated”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.

“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she notes. The inspiration for the series came—partly—from personal, initially difficult, move to LA and from the cosmic event, a frequently discussed occurrence for enthusiasts. This represented an era that involved her grasp major insights, in her career and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Humble Origins

Brought up in the East Coast, Sennott commenced creating and acting comedy while enrolled in acting 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. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

She decided to act independently, performing at open mics with Edebiri and uploading hilarious (and decidedly) weird skits digitally. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted several females intensely obsessed with motherhood; a different one portrayed working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being caught in a scary movie. Interestingly, she encountered Seligman through the university’s film scene and ended up starring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a Jewish wake with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her path, she explains, has been people her own age giving her a shot, instead of traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, adding with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”

Manifesting Dreams

Those who questioned regarding her then will likely be kicking themselves currently. As part of she describes as a “astonishingly complete” development, she seems to have created an ideal role. Previously she posted content titled about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a series about Angelenos balancing benefits of online celebrity (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being labeled as being a drug-addled thief, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). It would be easy to make a show about internet celebrity that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that belittled at its subjects. I Love LA does neither, making for a representation of privileged twentysomething existence that’s frank about the mess and the appeal.

Nuanced Portrayal

“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