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Rachel Sennott joins the video call and right away starts an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, seeming really apologetic. She is only a bit delayed, she feels compelled to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, for a writer, that’s exactly what one hopes to hear. Moreover, it’s quite unsurprising. Anyone familiar with the unapologetically LGBTQ+ and outspoken project Bottoms—which she co-wrote with Emma Seligman and appeared in together with her friend The Bear’s standout—will understand that she holds plenty to share, whether on roles, sex, or the merits of creating a teen fight club. Furthermore, once you finish the new multi-episode program titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star has further thoughts about the challenges of young adulthood (At 30, she represents a relatable figure for this generation, on the cusp with a knack for straddling millennials and Gen Z).

Inspirations and Artistic Direction

Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and Sennott admits to being a fan, referencing it together with Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as guides for the project, which follows the travails of online personality Tallulah and close companion and new talent manager portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the biggest presence on concept went to the HBO series, the show focusing on an emerging A-list actor succeeding in an often-seedy LA scene (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She discovered it amid the pandemic, became “captivated”, and resolved to create a new version 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 inspiration for this project came—in part—from firsthand, initially difficult, transition to LA and from her astrological phase, a popular phenomenon for followers. It was an era that included her grasp significant life lessons, work-wise and personally. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”

Humble Origins

Raised in New England, the star commenced writing and performing humor while enrolled in performance at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

She took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at live shows with Edebiri and uploading uproarious (and distinctly) weird online content on the internet. One, Baby Cult, centered on characters obsessively fixated on pregnancy; a different one portrayed being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being trapped in a thriller. By chance, she encountered Emma through the university’s film scene and ultimately starring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the intense thriller. The big theme of her journey, she explains, has been peers supporting her, instead of established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, stating amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Manifesting Dreams

Anyone who questioned regarding her then will certainly be feeling foolish today. As part of she calls a “incredibly circular” development, she appears to created the perfect project. A few years back she posted a clip named “it’s LA” on social media, in which she parodied movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with the co-writer) of a series about city dwellers managing advantages of online celebrity (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your client being labeled as being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a risky pariah). One might tempting to create a series about internet celebrity that was overly idealized—or, worse, one that mocked at the characters. The series steers clear of each, resulting in a depiction of advantaged young adult existence that’s honest about the grot and the shine.

Empathetic Approach

“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