The actress and writer discussing the side-splitting series about the grotty appeal of younger generation life

Rachel Sennott appears on the digital interview and right away launches into an explanation. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, seeming genuinely remorseful. She is only a couple of minutes delayed, she feels compelled to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, for a writer, that’s precisely what one hopes to experience. Moreover, it’s pretty unsurprising. Anyone familiar with her boldly LGBTQ+ and outspoken movie Bottoms—which she co-wrote with her creative partner and starred in alongside collaborator The Bear’s standout—will understand that she holds plenty to discuss, whether on gender, intimacy, or the appeal of starting a youth brawl society. Furthermore, by the end the recent eight-part HBO series I Love LA, viewers realize that the star has even more thoughts on the darker side of Gen Z life (As a millennial, she represents an honorary member to younger audiences, straddling eras skilled for bridging both generations).

Inspirations and Artistic Direction

Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and the actress is a fan, citing it in addition to Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as influences for I Love LA, which follows the travails of an influencer Tallulah and close companion and aspiring agent Sennott’s character. Notably, the biggest spot on the moodboard went to the popular sitcom, that program focusing on an up-and-coming A-list actor making his way in a corrupt entertainment industry (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott started watching it during COVID-19, became “hooked”, and resolved to put her own twist on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.

“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she says. The inspiration for I Love LA came—to some extent—from her own, originally difficult, move to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a frequently discussed phenomenon for astrology heads. It was an era that involved her understand some big life lessons, work-wise and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” 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

Growing up in Connecticut, the star started creating and acting humor while studying performance at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

She took matters into her own hands, appearing at open mics with her friend and sharing uproarious (and very) bizarre comedy videos online. One, titled Baby Cult, centered on characters obsessively obsessed with pregnancy; a different one portrayed being employed at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being stuck in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and ended up starring in her first film, Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her path, she notes, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, instead of the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she repeats, stating amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”

Manifesting Dreams

Anyone who had doubts about her previously will certainly be regretting it now. As part of she labels a “wild, full-circle” story, she seems to have manifested the perfect project. In 2019 she posted a video called “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she parodied movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a series about city dwellers juggling benefits of online celebrity (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with downsides (your friend being labeled as being a drug-addled thief, and possibly becoming a unreliable outcast). It would be tempting to produce a series about online fame that was extremely aspirational—or, worse, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA does neither, making for a portrait of privileged young adult existence that’s honest about the chaos and the appeal.

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 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