🔗 Share this article

Rachel Sennott joins the video call and immediately starts an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, appearing really regretful. She is only a couple of minutes late, she wants to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Fortunately, in this context, that’s exactly what you want to encounter. Additionally, it’s quite predictable. Anyone who have seen the fearlessly queer and outspoken film titled Bottoms—which Sennott penned with the director and featured in alongside close companion the talented actress—can be aware that Sennott possesses a lot to say, be it on gender, relationships, or the appeal of starting a teen combat group. And, once you finish the latest seasonal HBO series titled I Love LA, viewers realize that the star holds additional thoughts on the darker side of young adulthood (At 30, she is a bridge to younger audiences, straddling eras with a knack for bridging different age groups).

Influences and Storytelling Approach

Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and the actress readily acknowledges an admirer, naming it together with Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as guides for the project, which follows the struggles of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also new representative Sennott’s character. However, the biggest presence on the moodboard was reserved for the popular sitcom, that HBO sitcom focusing on an emerging A-list actor making his way in a gritty LA scene (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott began viewing it amid COVID-19, became “captivated”, and chose to add a fresh perspective on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.

“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she explains. The concept for this project emerged—to some extent—from personal, at first rocky, move to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a frequently discussed phenomenon for enthusiasts. That period marked a time that saw her grasp major insights, in her career and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Humble Origins

Growing up in New England, Sennott started creating and acting stand-up while studying acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “None of the university plays cast me either.” And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

Sennott decided to act independently, taking the stage at live shows with Edebiri and uploading hysterical (and decidedly) weird skits on the internet. One, Baby Cult, depicted characters fetishistically fixated on pregnancy; another portrayed working at the brand Hollister as akin to being stuck in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a funeral gathering with shades of Uncut Gems. The big theme of her journey, she notes, has been people her own age offering opportunities, instead of established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she repeats, adding humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”

Career Breakthrough

Anyone who questioned about her then will certainly be kicking themselves today. As part of she calls a “wild, full-circle” story, she appears to achieved the perfect project. In 2019 she posted content titled about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a show about Angelenos juggling advantages of online celebrity (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your associate being accused of being a drug-addled criminal, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). It would be simple to produce a series about internet celebrity that was horribly idealized—or, worse, one that mocked at the characters. This show does neither, making for a representation of advantaged millennial living that’s honest about the chaos and the shine.

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