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Rachel Sennott joins the online meeting and immediately starts an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, appearing truly apologetic. Although she's only a couple of minutes late, she needs to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, for a writer, that’s precisely what you want to encounter. Besides, it’s pretty predictable. Anyone familiar with her fearlessly queer and outspoken film titled Bottoms—that she collaborated on with her creative partner and appeared in alongside her friend the talented actress—would be aware that she holds much to say, ranging from about roles, intimacy, or the appeal of forming a teen combat group. And, by the end the latest multi-episode program titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star holds additional perspectives regarding the darker side of modern youth (Now in her thirties, Sennott is an honorary member for this generation, straddling eras adept for bridging millennials and Gen Z).

Inspirations and Creative Vision

Parallels to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and Sennott admits to being a fan, citing it alongside Sex and the City, Insecure and the innovative program as inspirations for the project, which tracks the travails of a social media star Tallulah and close companion who is also new agent Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the most significant spot on creative vision belonged to the popular sitcom, the HBO sitcom depicting an up-and-coming celebrity making his way in an often-seedy LA scene (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott started watching it amid the pandemic, became “captivated”, and decided to add a fresh perspective 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 concept for this project originated—partly—from personal, originally rocky, move to Los Angeles and from her saturn return, a popular occurrence for enthusiasts. That period marked an era that involved her grasp significant life lessons, work-wise and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she recalls. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”

Starting Out

Raised in Connecticut, the star started writing and performing humor while enrolled in acting at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

She took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at open mics with her friend and uploading uproarious (and distinctly) weird comedy videos digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted a group of women obsessively obsessed with pregnancy; a different one portrayed being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being trapped in a thriller. By chance, she met Emma through the university’s film scene and ended up starring in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her path, she explains, has been contemporaries supporting her, rather than the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, adding amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Manifesting Dreams

Those who questioned about Sennott previously will likely be regretting it currently. Through she labels a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she appears to manifested the perfect project. A few years back she shared content called about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she lampooned film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about Angelenos managing the perks of online celebrity (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your associate being labeled as being a drug-addled stealer, and perhaps becoming a risky outcast). Some could easy to create a show about internet celebrity that was extremely aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at those depicted. I Love LA does neither, creating a portrait of affluent millennial existence that’s frank about the mess and the appeal.

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