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Rachel Sennott enters the video call and right away launches into an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, sounding really remorseful. She is only a bit delayed, she wants to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Thankfully, for a writer, that’s precisely what is ideal to encounter. Besides, it’s fairly unsurprising. Viewers who know the fearlessly openly gay and unapologetically crass movie Bottoms—which she penned with the director and starred in with collaborator the talented actress—can understand that she has a lot to discuss, whether on gender, relationships, or the merits of starting a high-school combat group. Plus, after watching the latest seasonal show I Love LA, it is clear that the star carries even more insights on the struggles of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, she represents a bridge of the gang, a tale-end millennial skilled for straddling millennials and Gen Z).

Inspirations and Creative Vision

Likenesses to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and the actress admits to being an admirer, citing the show alongside the HBO hit, Insecure and Atlanta as inspirations for her series, which follows the travails of a social media star Tallulah and close companion and new agent Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the most significant influence on creative vision went to the HBO series, that program about a rising A-list actor making his way in an often-seedy entertainment industry (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott started watching it amid lockdown, became “obsessed”, and resolved to put her own twist on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.

“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she says. The idea for this project emerged—partly—from firsthand, originally rocky, relocation to Los Angeles and from the saturn return, a popular phenomenon for enthusiasts. It was an era that saw her understand some big life lessons, in her career and in private life. “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 was almost like these biblical tests …”

Starting Out

Raised in Connecticut, the star began creating and acting comedy while pursuing theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. 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.”

Sennott decided to act independently, performing at live shows with Edebiri and sharing hilarious (and very) weird comedy videos online. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted characters fetishistically fixated on motherhood; a different one imagined working at the brand Hollister as akin to being caught in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Emma through campus film circles and ended up featuring in her first film, Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of the intense thriller. The central motif of her journey, she says, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, instead of the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she confirms, continuing humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Rising Success

Individuals who were skeptical regarding Sennott earlier will surely be feeling foolish today. Through she labels a “astonishingly complete” development, she seems to have created an ideal role. Previously she uploaded content called about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she parodied movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a show about city dwellers balancing the perks of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your client being accused of being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). It would be simple to produce a program about digital influence that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that mocked at those depicted. The series does neither, creating a portrait of advantaged twentysomething existence that’s honest about the mess and the glamour.

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 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