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Rachel Sennott appears on the video call and at once begins an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, appearing really remorseful. Despite being only a bit behind, she needs to clarify. “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!” Fortunately, in this context, this is exactly what one hopes to hear. Additionally, it’s fairly unsurprising. Anyone who have seen the fearlessly queer and unapologetically crass film titled Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with the director and starred in alongside close companion the talented actress—would already know that she possesses plenty to say, be it about gender, relationships, or the merits of forming a teen combat group. Furthermore, once you finish her recent seasonal show titled I Love LA, it is clear that she has additional thoughts regarding the struggles of modern youth (As a millennial, she serves as a relatable figure for this generation, a tale-end millennial with a knack for connecting different age groups).

Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress admits to being enthusiastic, naming it together with the HBO hit, the acclaimed comedy and Donald Glover’s series as guides for I Love LA, which tracks the journey of online personality Tallulah and ally who is also fledgling talent manager portrayed by Sennott. However, the biggest influence on creative vision was reserved for the popular sitcom, the show about an emerging A-list actor navigating in a corrupt entertainment industry (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She discovered it throughout lockdown, became “obsessed”, and resolved to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.

“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she notes. The inspiration for I Love LA originated—partly—from her own, at first rocky, transition to LA and from her saturn return, a much-talked-about phenomenon for astrology heads. It was a time that involved her understand major life lessons, in her career and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Humble Origins

Brought up in New England, the star began writing and performing stand-up while studying acting at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “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. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”

She took matters into her own hands, appearing at open mics with her friend and uploading hysterical (and very) weird skits online. One, Baby Cult, depicted a group of women obsessively drawn to having babies; a different one envisioned being employed at a trendy retail outlet as like being caught in a horror film. Interestingly, she connected with Seligman through NYU’s movie community and ended up appearing in her first film, Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the intense thriller. The big theme of her career, she says, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, rather than established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she repeats, continuing with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Career Breakthrough

Anyone who questioned regarding Sennott previously will surely be feeling foolish today. In what she calls a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she seems to have created an ideal role. A few years back she shared a video called on LA life on social media, in which she lampooned film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a series about LA residents juggling advantages of internet fame (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your friend being labeled as being a intoxicated criminal, and potentially becoming a risky pariah). Some could tempting to produce a series about internet celebrity that was extremely aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that mocked at the characters. I Love LA avoids both, creating a portrait of affluent millennial life that’s honest about the chaos and the shine.

Nuanced Portrayal

“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