Rachel Sennott on her hilarious show about that chaotic appeal of Gen Z life

The performer appears on the video call and right away starts an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, appearing truly remorseful. She is only a bit behind, she wants to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Fortunately, for a writer, that’s just what you want to experience. Moreover, it’s fairly expected. Anyone who know her unapologetically openly gay and outspoken film Bottoms—which she collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in with collaborator The Bear’s standout—can understand that she holds a lot to share, be it on roles, relationships, or the merits of forming a high-school brawl society. And, after watching her new seasonal program titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she carries even more insights regarding the darker side of Gen Z life (As a millennial, Sennott is a bridge to younger audiences, straddling eras skilled for connecting different age groups).

Influences and Storytelling Approach

The comparisons to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and the actress admits to being a fan, naming the show together with the HBO hit, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as guides for I Love LA, which tracks the travails of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and ally and new representative Sennott’s character. However, the biggest presence on the moodboard belonged to the popular sitcom, that HBO sitcom depicting an emerging A-list actor navigating in an often-seedy LA scene (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott began viewing it amid the pandemic, became “hooked”, and decided to create a new version 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 inspiration for the series originated—partly—from firsthand, initially rocky, transition to Los Angeles and from the astrological phase, a frequently discussed phenomenon for followers. It was a time that involved her learn major truths, work-wise and individually. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she admits. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Humble Origins

Growing up in the East Coast, Sennott began writing and performing humor while pursuing performance at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “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. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

She decided to act independently, taking the stage at amateur nights with Edebiri and sharing uproarious (and decidedly) weird skits digitally. A particular video, Baby Cult, centered on a group of women fetishistically fixated on motherhood; a different one imagined working at a trendy retail outlet as like being trapped in a scary movie. Interestingly, she connected with Seligman through the university’s film scene and eventually featuring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her path, she notes, has been peers supporting her, instead of established gatekeepers. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, adding with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Career Breakthrough

Individuals who were skeptical regarding Sennott earlier will surely be feeling foolish now. Through she labels a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she has manifested an ideal role. A few years back she shared a clip titled “it’s LA” on social media, in which she parodied movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a series about city dwellers balancing the perks of digital stardom (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a substance-abusing stealer, and perhaps becoming a unreliable pariah). One might tempting to produce a show about digital influence that was extremely aspirational—or, worse, one that mocked at the characters. I Love LA steers clear of each, making for a portrait of affluent twentysomething life that’s frank about the grot and the glamour.

Nuanced Portrayal

“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

Angela Smith
Angela Smith

A tech strategist with over a decade of experience in digital innovation and business transformation.