Rachel Sennott enters the video call and right away starts an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, appearing truly apologetic. She is only a couple of minutes behind, she needs to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Fortunately, during an interview, that’s just what one hopes to experience. Besides, it’s fairly unsurprising. Viewers familiar with the boldly openly gay and outspoken film titled Bottoms—which she penned with Emma Seligman and appeared in alongside collaborator The Bear’s standout—can already know that she holds much to say, ranging from about identity, relationships, or the pros of starting a teen brawl society. And, once you finish the recent multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star carries even more perspectives about the challenges of Gen Z life (At 30, she is a relatable figure of the gang, straddling eras with a knack for bridging both generations).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, citing the show in addition to the classic series, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as influences for the project, which follows the travails of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and ally and fledgling representative Maia. Perhaps, the most significant influence on the moodboard went to the HBO series, the HBO sitcom focusing on an emerging A-list actor making his way in a corrupt Hollywood (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She began viewing it throughout COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and chose to add a fresh perspective on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she says. The concept for the series came—to some extent—from her own, originally difficult, move to Los Angeles and from her saturn return, a frequently discussed phenomenon for enthusiasts. It was a phase that included her learn some big truths, professionally and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in New England, Sennott started writing and performing stand-up while studying acting at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she explains. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” 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 seized control, taking the stage at amateur nights with her friend and posting hysterical (and very) weird comedy videos online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed characters fetishistically obsessed with having babies; another imagined working at the brand Hollister as akin to being stuck in a thriller. By chance, she met Emma through the university’s film scene and ultimately featuring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a religious event with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her journey, she says, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, rather than traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, adding with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who questioned about Sennott earlier will certainly be regretting it currently. In what she describes as a “incredibly circular” development, she seems to have manifested her dream vehicle. Previously she posted a video called on LA life on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a comedy about LA residents juggling advantages of digital stardom (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being accused of being a substance-abusing criminal, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). Some could easy to make a series about internet celebrity that was extremely idealized—or, worse, one that mocked at the characters. This show avoids both, resulting in a portrait of privileged millennial existence that’s frank about the grot and the shine.
Balanced Perspective
“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
