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Rachel Sennott enters the video call and at once launches into an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, appearing truly apologetic. Despite being only slightly delayed, she feels compelled to justify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, during an interview, this is precisely what you want to experience. Moreover, it’s pretty unsurprising. Those familiar with her boldly openly gay and brash film Bottoms—which she penned with Emma Seligman and starred in together with her friend the talented actress—will already know that Sennott holds much to say, be it about gender, relationships, or the merits of forming a high-school fight club. Plus, after watching the recent eight-part HBO series I Love LA, it is clear that the star has even more perspectives about the darker side of modern youth (At 30, she represents an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras with a knack for bridging both generations).

Inspirations and Artistic Direction

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and the actress admits to being enthusiastic, citing it together with the classic series, Insecure and Atlanta as influences for her series, which follows the struggles of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also fledgling agent Maia. Perhaps, the most significant influence on concept belonged to the popular sitcom, the show depicting an up-and-coming Hollywood star making his way in a gritty entertainment industry (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She began viewing it throughout lockdown, became “captivated”, and resolved to create a new version on it “for the girls and the gays”.

“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she says. The idea for the series originated—to some extent—from her own, at first fractious, transition to Los Angeles and from her astrological phase, a much-talked-about phenomenon for enthusiasts. This represented an era that saw her grasp some big life lessons, professionally and personally. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Starting Out

Brought up in the East Coast, Sennott began writing and performing humor while pursuing theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

She decided to act independently, performing at live shows with Edebiri and sharing hilarious (and decidedly) weird comedy videos on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted characters fetishistically drawn to having babies; a different one imagined being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being trapped in a horror film. Interestingly, she met Seligman through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a Jewish wake with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her path, she says, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, instead of established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she confirms, adding humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”

Career Breakthrough

Anyone who questioned regarding Sennott earlier will likely be feeling foolish now. Through she labels a “wild, full-circle” story, she seems to have created her dream vehicle. In 2019 she shared a clip titled on LA life on the internet, in which she mocked Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a show about LA residents juggling the perks of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your client being suspected of being a intoxicated stealer, and potentially becoming a unreliable pariah). One might tempting to make a show about digital influence that was overly glamorous—or, worse, one that punched down at the characters. This show steers clear of each, creating a portrait of privileged millennial life that’s frank about the mess and the shine.

Nuanced Portrayal

“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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