The comedic talent exploring her side-splitting comedy about the messy appeal of today's youth lifestyle
Rachel Sennott appears on the digital interview and at once starts an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, sounding really remorseful. Although she's only a bit late, she needs to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, for a writer, this is precisely what one hopes to experience. Additionally, it’s pretty expected. Viewers who know the boldly queer and outspoken film Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with Emma Seligman and starred in with collaborator The Bear’s standout—will already know that she possesses plenty to share, whether on roles, intimacy, or the pros of creating a high-school combat group. Plus, once you finish her latest eight-part show titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star holds further thoughts on the challenges of Gen Z life (At 30, she is an honorary member for this generation, on the cusp skilled for bridging both generations).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and the actress is a fan, naming it alongside Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as guides for the project, which details the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and fledgling agent Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the most significant influence on the moodboard belonged to the HBO series, that show about a rising Hollywood star navigating in an often-seedy LA scene (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She discovered it throughout the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and chose to add a fresh perspective on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she says. The concept for this project came—partly—from personal, originally fractious, transition to Los Angeles and from the cosmic event, a popular event for astrology heads. It was an era that involved her learn some big truths, in her career and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she says. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in Connecticut, the star began developing and showcasing stand-up while pursuing acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she says. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at amateur nights with Edebiri and posting hysterical (and distinctly) unconventional skits on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, centered on characters intensely obsessed with motherhood; a different one portrayed working at the brand Hollister as like being caught in a horror film. Interestingly, she encountered Seligman through the university’s film scene and eventually featuring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she says, has been peers supporting her, as opposed to established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, continuing amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who questioned regarding Sennott earlier will certainly be feeling foolish currently. Through she calls a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she has manifested her dream vehicle. In 2019 she posted a video named about Los Angeles online, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a comedy about city dwellers managing benefits of online celebrity (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a substance-abusing criminal, and perhaps becoming a risky outcast). It would be simple to create a program about digital influence that was horribly aspirational—or, more problematic, one that mocked at its subjects. The series does neither, creating a depiction of advantaged young adult existence that’s candid about the grot 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 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