Rachel Sennott enters the digital interview and at once begins an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, appearing truly remorseful. She is only a couple of minutes behind, she needs to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Fortunately, during an interview, that’s exactly what one hopes to hear. Moreover, it’s pretty unsurprising. Anyone who know the unapologetically LGBTQ+ and brash project Bottoms—that she penned with Emma Seligman and starred in with close companion Ayo Edebiri—would understand that she holds much to share, ranging from about gender, sex, or the appeal of creating a teen brawl society. Plus, after watching her new seasonal program titled I Love LA, viewers realize that the star has additional perspectives about the darker side of Gen Z life (As a millennial, she serves as a relatable figure of the gang, a tale-end millennial with a knack for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Influences and Creative Vision
Parallels to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and Sennott readily acknowledges a fan, citing the show alongside the classic series, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as guides for her series, which tracks the journey of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and ally and new agent Maia. Perhaps, the largest spot on creative vision was reserved for the popular sitcom, the HBO sitcom about an emerging A-list actor succeeding in an often-seedy Hollywood (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott started watching it throughout COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and chose 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 explains. The idea for this project originated—in part—from firsthand, initially difficult, transition to Los Angeles and from her astrological phase, a popular occurrence for followers. That period marked a time that included her understand some big insights, in her career and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Humble Origins
Brought up in the East Coast, the star started developing and showcasing comedy while studying performance at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she says. “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 decided to act independently, performing at live shows with her friend and posting hysterical (and distinctly) bizarre online content online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted a group of women obsessively obsessed with motherhood; another portrayed being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being trapped in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through the university’s film scene and ultimately appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her journey, she says, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, rather than the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, adding with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Rising Success
Those who had doubts about her previously will surely be kicking themselves today. Through she calls a “incredibly circular” story, she appears to manifested an ideal role. In 2019 she uploaded a clip called “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a series about city dwellers managing benefits of online celebrity (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being suspected of being a substance-abusing criminal, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). It would be easy to make a program about internet celebrity that was extremely idealized—or, worse, one that belittled at its subjects. The series does neither, creating a portrait of privileged young adult existence that’s honest about the chaos and the shine.
Empathetic Approach
“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
