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Rachel Sennott enters the video call and immediately launches into an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, sounding really remorseful. She is only a couple of minutes late, she wants to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, for a writer, that’s precisely what one hopes to encounter. Besides, it’s fairly expected. Anyone familiar with the unapologetically openly gay and unapologetically crass project titled Bottoms—that she penned with the director and featured in together with collaborator the talented actress—will understand that she has a lot to share, ranging from about identity, sex, or the merits of forming a high-school brawl society. And, after watching the recent seasonal show I Love LA, it is clear that the star carries further thoughts regarding the struggles of modern youth (At 30, she represents a relatable figure to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial adept for bridging millennials and Gen Z).

Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction

Parallels to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and Sennott admits to being a fan, citing it in addition to the classic series, Insecure and the innovative program as influences for her series, which follows the journey of online personality Tallulah and close companion and new agent Maia. However, the largest presence on creative vision was reserved for the popular sitcom, that show about an emerging A-list actor succeeding in an often-seedy LA scene (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott began viewing it during lockdown, became “captivated”, and resolved to put her own twist 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 says. The idea for the series originated—partly—from her own, initially rocky, relocation to Tinseltown and from the saturn return, a much-talked-about occurrence for followers. It was an era that involved her grasp significant insights, professionally and individually. “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. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Early Beginnings

Raised in Connecticut, Sennott began writing and performing stand-up while enrolled in theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

Sennott took matters into her own hands, appearing at amateur nights with Ayo and sharing hysterical (and very) bizarre online content digitally. A particular video, Baby Cult, centered on characters fetishistically fixated on pregnancy; another envisioned being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being caught in a horror film. By chance, she connected with Emma through the university’s film scene and eventually appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of the intense thriller. The central motif of her career, she notes, has been peers offering opportunities, as opposed to the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, continuing humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”

Manifesting Dreams

Those who had doubts regarding her previously will surely be regretting it today. In what she describes as a “astonishingly complete” development, she appears to achieved her dream vehicle. Previously she shared a video titled about Los Angeles online, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a comedy about city dwellers juggling benefits of online celebrity (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a intoxicated criminal, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). It would be easy to produce a program about digital influence that was extremely aspirational—or, worse, one that belittled at those depicted. I Love LA does neither, making for a representation of advantaged millennial living that’s honest about the chaos and the appeal.

Nuanced Portrayal

“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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