Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and right away launches into an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, seeming really regretful. Despite being only a bit delayed, she needs to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, in this context, this is just what one hopes to hear. Besides, it’s fairly unsurprising. Viewers familiar with the unapologetically openly gay and brash movie titled Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with the director and featured in with her friend the talented actress—can understand that Sennott possesses a lot to share, be it about gender, sex, or the pros of starting a youth brawl society. Furthermore, by the end the recent seasonal HBO series titled I Love LA, viewers realize that the star holds further insights about the challenges of young adulthood (As a millennial, Sennott represents a relatable figure for this generation, on the cusp adept for bridging both generations).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott is enthusiastic, citing it in addition to the classic series, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as influences for the project, which tracks the travails of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and ally and new talent manager portrayed by Sennott. Notably, the largest presence on creative vision went to the HBO series, the HBO sitcom depicting a rising celebrity making his way in an often-seedy Hollywood (choice quote: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott discovered it during COVID-19, became “captivated”, and chose to put her own twist 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 notes. The inspiration for this project emerged—partly—from her own, initially difficult, relocation to Tinseltown and from her cosmic event, a much-talked-about event for astrology heads. This represented an era that included her grasp significant insights, in her career and in private life. “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 Connecticut, Sennott commenced developing and showcasing humor while pursuing acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” 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 seized control, performing at open mics with Edebiri and posting hysterical (and distinctly) bizarre online content online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed characters fetishistically drawn to having babies; another imagined being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being stuck in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she met Emma through campus film circles and eventually appearing in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her journey, she notes, has been people her own age offering opportunities, instead of established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, stating with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who were skeptical regarding her previously will certainly be kicking themselves now. In what she describes as a “astonishingly complete” development, she seems to have created the perfect project. In 2019 she posted a clip named on LA life on social media, in which she parodied movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a comedy about Angelenos balancing benefits of internet fame (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being suspected of being a drug-addled criminal, and potentially becoming a unreliable pariah). One might easy to make a series about online fame that was horribly aspirational—or, worse, one that punched down at the characters. The series does neither, creating a representation of advantaged twentysomething existence that’s candid about the mess and the glamour.
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 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
