🔗 Share this article

Rachel Sennott appears on the digital interview and immediately launches into an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, sounding genuinely regretful. Despite being only a bit 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!” Thankfully, during an interview, this is exactly what one hopes to hear. Moreover, it’s pretty unsurprising. Those familiar with her boldly openly gay and brash movie Bottoms—that she penned with Emma Seligman and starred in together with her friend Ayo Edebiri—would understand that Sennott possesses a lot to discuss, ranging from about identity, intimacy, or the merits of starting a high-school fight club. Plus, once you finish the latest multi-episode show titled I Love LA, it is clear that she has even more insights on the darker side of Gen Z life (As a millennial, she is a bridge for this generation, on the cusp skilled for bridging different age groups).

Inspirations and Creative Vision

Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and the actress readily acknowledges an admirer, naming the show together with Sex and the City, Insecure and Atlanta as influences for the project, which details the struggles of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion and fledgling representative Sennott’s character. Notably, the biggest presence on the moodboard went to Entourage, that show about an emerging celebrity succeeding in a corrupt entertainment industry (notable statement: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She began viewing it during the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and chose to put her own twist on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.

“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The idea for this project originated—partly—from her own, initially difficult, transition to Los Angeles and from the saturn return, a much-talked-about occurrence for astrology heads. It was an era that involved her grasp major life lessons, 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 resembled a series of extreme challenges…”

Starting Out

Brought up in Connecticut, the star commenced writing and performing comedy while pursuing acting at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” 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. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

She decided to act independently, performing at open mics with Edebiri and sharing hilarious (and distinctly) weird comedy videos online. One, Baby Cult, centered on characters intensely drawn to having babies; a different one portrayed being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being stuck in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through NYU’s movie community and eventually starring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a religious event with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her path, she notes, has been people her own age giving her a shot, rather than the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, stating with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”

Rising Success

Anyone who had doubts regarding Sennott earlier will likely be regretting it today. Through she describes as a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she appears to manifested her dream vehicle. A few years back she shared a video named about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a series about Angelenos juggling advantages of online celebrity (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being accused of being a drug-addled thief, and perhaps becoming a risky persona non grata). One might easy to make a show about online fame that was horribly glamorous—or, more problematic, one that mocked at those depicted. The series does neither, creating a representation of affluent millennial existence that’s candid about the mess and the glamour.

Balanced Perspective

“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