The actress and writer exploring her side-splitting comedy portraying the chaotic glamour of today's youth lifestyle

Rachel Sennott enters the video call and immediately begins an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, appearing really regretful. Although she's only a bit behind, she wants to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s precisely what you want to hear. Additionally, it’s fairly expected. Viewers who have seen her boldly queer and brash project Bottoms—that Sennott penned with Emma Seligman and appeared in with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—can understand that Sennott has plenty to share, be it about gender, intimacy, or the pros of creating a high-school brawl society. Plus, by the end her recent multi-episode show titled I Love LA, it is clear that she has even more insights about the darker side of young adulthood (At 30, she is a bridge of the gang, on the cusp with a knack for straddling different age groups).

Influences and Artistic Direction

Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and the actress admits to being a fan, referencing the show alongside Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as guides for I Love LA, which details the travails of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also aspiring agent Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the largest influence on concept was reserved for Entourage, the program about an up-and-coming Hollywood star succeeding in a corrupt entertainment industry (choice quote: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott began viewing it during COVID-19, became “obsessed”, 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 inspiration for I Love LA originated—partly—from firsthand, initially fractious, move to LA and from the astrological phase, a frequently discussed event for enthusiasts. It was a time that involved her understand significant truths, work-wise and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”

Starting Out

Raised in Connecticut, the star began writing and performing comedy while pursuing performance at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “I wondered why I was even there at all.”

She took matters into her own hands, performing at open mics with her friend and posting hysterical (and decidedly) unconventional online content on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on a group of women intensely obsessed with pregnancy; another envisioned being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being stuck in a horror film. Interestingly, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and ended up appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a religious event with shades of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her path, she notes, has been contemporaries supporting her, instead of traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, adding humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”

Career Breakthrough

Those who had doubts regarding her then will surely be kicking themselves now. In what she describes as a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she has achieved her dream vehicle. Previously she uploaded content called on LA life online, in which she parodied film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a show about LA residents managing benefits of internet fame (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your associate being suspected of being a substance-abusing criminal, and potentially becoming a risky outcast). It would be simple to create a series about internet celebrity that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that punched down at those depicted. I Love LA does neither, creating a depiction of advantaged twentysomething living 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