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Rachel Sennott enters the digital interview and at once launches into an explanation. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, sounding really regretful. Although she's only a couple of minutes behind, she needs to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s just what one hopes to encounter. Additionally, it’s fairly expected. Anyone who know the fearlessly queer and brash film Bottoms—that Sennott collaborated on with the director and featured in alongside her friend Ayo Edebiri—can understand that Sennott holds plenty to share, be it about roles, sex, or the pros of starting a high-school combat group. Furthermore, after watching the latest eight-part program titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star has further perspectives about the struggles of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she represents a bridge to younger audiences, straddling eras with a knack for connecting both generations).

Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach

Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress readily acknowledges enthusiastic, citing the show in addition to the classic series, the acclaimed comedy and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for I Love LA, which follows the struggles of online personality Tallulah and ally who is also new agent Maia. Notably, the largest spot on the moodboard went to the popular sitcom, that show depicting an up-and-coming Hollywood star succeeding in a corrupt LA scene (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott started watching it during lockdown, became “hooked”, and chose to create a new version on it “for the girls and the gays”.

“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she says. The inspiration for the series emerged—to some extent—from her own, initially fractious, transition to LA and from the saturn return, a popular phenomenon for astrology heads. This represented a phase that included her understand major life lessons, professionally and personally. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she says. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”

Humble Origins

Raised in New England, Sennott began developing and showcasing humor while enrolled in theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. 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 decided to act independently, performing at live shows with Ayo and sharing hilarious (and very) unconventional comedy videos online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on characters intensely obsessed with pregnancy; another envisioned working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being stuck in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Emma through the university’s film scene and eventually appearing in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a religious event with echoes of Uncut Gems. The big theme of her journey, she notes, has been peers supporting her, instead of established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, stating amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Manifesting Dreams

Individuals who were skeptical about Sennott then will certainly be regretting it now. Through she labels a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she seems to have achieved her dream vehicle. Previously she posted content called on LA life on social media, in which she parodied film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a comedy about city dwellers balancing benefits of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being accused of being a drug-addled thief, and possibly becoming a risky pariah). One might tempting to create a series about digital influence that was overly idealized—or, worse, one that belittled at those depicted. The series avoids both, resulting in a depiction of affluent millennial life that’s candid about the chaos and the appeal.

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 says. “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