Rachel Sennott enters the video call and immediately begins an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, seeming really remorseful. She is only a couple of minutes delayed, she feels compelled to clarify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, in this context, this is exactly what you want to encounter. Additionally, it’s fairly predictable. Anyone who know the boldly LGBTQ+ and outspoken project titled Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with her creative partner and appeared in with close companion Ayo Edebiri—would be aware that Sennott has a lot to discuss, be it on identity, sex, or the pros of creating a teen combat group. Furthermore, by the end her recent seasonal HBO series I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star has even more thoughts about the challenges of Gen Z life (At 30, she is an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras with a knack for straddling both generations).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and the actress admits to being a fan, naming it alongside the HBO hit, Insecure and the innovative program as guides for the project, which tracks the travails of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and ally and fledgling representative Maia. However, the most significant influence on the moodboard was reserved for the HBO series, that HBO sitcom depicting a rising celebrity succeeding in a gritty Hollywood (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She discovered it throughout the pandemic, became “hooked”, and resolved to create a new version 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 says. The inspiration for the series came—to some extent—from her own, at first difficult, relocation to LA and from her saturn return, a popular occurrence for astrology heads. It was an era that saw her grasp some big truths, professionally and individually. “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. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Humble Origins
Growing up in Connecticut, Sennott commenced creating and acting humor while enrolled in performance at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “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. “None of the university plays cast me either.” And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She decided to act independently, appearing at live shows with her friend and uploading hilarious (and distinctly) bizarre skits online. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed characters obsessively obsessed with having babies; a different one imagined being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being stuck in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she met Seligman through the university’s film scene and ended up appearing in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her path, she notes, has been peers giving her a shot, as opposed to established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, stating amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Career Breakthrough
Individuals who questioned about Sennott earlier will likely be feeling foolish now. As part of she labels a “incredibly circular” story, she seems to have achieved the perfect project. In 2019 she posted a clip titled on LA life on the internet, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a series about city dwellers balancing benefits of online celebrity (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being suspected of being a substance-abusing criminal, and possibly becoming a risky outcast). Some could easy to produce a series about online fame that was extremely aspirational—or, worse, one that mocked at the characters. This show steers clear of each, creating a portrait of affluent young adult life that’s candid about the chaos 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 comments. “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
