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Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and at once starts an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, appearing really regretful. Although she's only a couple of minutes late, she feels compelled to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Thankfully, during an interview, this is precisely what one hopes to encounter. Besides, it’s quite predictable. Anyone familiar with her unapologetically queer and unapologetically crass film titled Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with her creative partner and starred in together with close companion The Bear’s standout—can understand that she possesses much to discuss, ranging from on roles, intimacy, or the merits of creating a high-school combat group. Plus, once you finish the recent multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, it is clear that she holds even more insights about the struggles of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, she is an honorary member for this generation, on the cusp adept for straddling different age groups).

Influences and Storytelling Approach

Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and the actress readily acknowledges a fan, naming the show in addition to the classic series, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for I Love LA, which details the travails of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also aspiring talent manager portrayed by Sennott. Notably, the largest spot on creative vision belonged to the HBO series, that HBO sitcom depicting an emerging Hollywood star navigating in an often-seedy Hollywood (notable statement: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott discovered it during lockdown, became “captivated”, and decided to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.

“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she says. The idea for the series emerged—in part—from personal, initially rocky, move to LA and from the saturn return, a popular occurrence for astrology heads. It was a phase that saw her understand significant truths, professionally and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she says. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Starting Out

Raised in the East Coast, Sennott started writing and performing humor while pursuing performance at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

She seized control, appearing at amateur nights with Edebiri and posting hilarious (and very) bizarre skits on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, depicted a group of women intensely drawn to having babies; a different one portrayed being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being trapped in a thriller. By chance, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her journey, she says, has been peers giving her a shot, as opposed to established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, adding with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Career Breakthrough

Those who questioned about her previously will likely be feeling foolish currently. In what she labels a “incredibly circular” story, she seems to have created her dream vehicle. Previously she shared a video titled “it’s LA” on social media, in which she mocked movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a show about Angelenos juggling advantages of digital stardom (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being labeled as being a drug-addled thief, and potentially becoming a unreliable outcast). One might simple to create a series about digital influence that was extremely aspirational—or, more problematic, one that mocked at those depicted. This show does neither, resulting in a representation of advantaged young adult existence that’s candid about the grot and the glamour.

Empathetic Approach

“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