The actress and writer discussing the uproarious comedy portraying that chaotic glamour of Gen Z existence

Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and immediately launches into an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, sounding really regretful. She is only slightly delayed, she needs to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s just what is ideal to experience. Besides, it’s fairly predictable. Those who know her unapologetically queer and outspoken movie titled Bottoms—that she co-wrote with the director and starred in alongside collaborator Ayo Edebiri—would already know that Sennott has much to share, ranging from about gender, intimacy, or the appeal of creating a youth brawl society. Furthermore, after watching the recent eight-part program titled I Love LA, viewers realize that the star carries even more thoughts on the struggles of modern youth (Now in her thirties, she is an honorary member to younger audiences, on the cusp skilled for straddling both generations).

Influences and Creative Vision

Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and Sennott readily acknowledges a fan, naming the show alongside the HBO hit, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as inspirations for I Love LA, which tracks the travails of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion and aspiring representative Sennott’s character. However, the largest presence on creative vision was reserved for the popular sitcom, the program depicting an emerging A-list actor succeeding in an often-seedy entertainment industry (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She began viewing it during the pandemic, became “hooked”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective 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 notes. The concept for I Love LA emerged—partly—from her own, at first fractious, relocation to Los Angeles and from the saturn return, a popular phenomenon for followers. It was a time that saw her understand some big life lessons, work-wise and in private life. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she recalls. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Early Beginnings

Raised in Connecticut, Sennott started writing and performing comedy while studying theatre at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. 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?”

Sennott decided to act independently, appearing at amateur nights with Ayo and uploading hilarious (and decidedly) bizarre online content on the internet. One, Baby Cult, centered on a group of women intensely fixated on pregnancy; another envisioned working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being caught in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Emma through NYU’s movie community and ended up starring in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a Jewish wake with hints of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her journey, she explains, has been peers supporting her, rather than established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, continuing amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”

Rising Success

Individuals who were skeptical about her previously will likely be regretting it today. Through she describes as a “wild, full-circle” development, she appears to manifested the perfect project. A few years back she uploaded a clip titled on LA life online, in which she mocked movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about LA residents juggling the perks of online celebrity (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being accused of being a drug-addled thief, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). It would be tempting to produce a program about internet celebrity that was extremely idealized—or, worse, one that punched down at its subjects. This show avoids both, creating a depiction of affluent twentysomething life that’s candid about the mess and the appeal.

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