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Rachel Sennott appears on the video call and right away starts an explanation. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, appearing genuinely apologetic. She is only slightly delayed, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, during an interview, this is precisely what one hopes to experience. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Viewers who know the boldly queer and unapologetically crass film titled Bottoms—that she collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in alongside collaborator the talented actress—would understand that Sennott holds a lot to discuss, whether on roles, intimacy, or the merits of creating a youth combat group. Plus, once you finish the latest multi-episode HBO series I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she carries further perspectives about the darker side of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she serves as an honorary member to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial with a knack for connecting both generations).

Guiding Lights and Creative Vision

Likenesses 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 her series, which tracks the struggles of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also aspiring agent Sennott’s character. However, the biggest presence on creative vision was reserved for the HBO series, the show about a rising celebrity navigating in an often-seedy Hollywood (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She began viewing it amid lockdown, became “captivated”, and chose to create a new version on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.

“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she says. The concept for this project originated—in part—from firsthand, initially fractious, transition to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a much-talked-about occurrence for enthusiasts. This represented a phase that included her learn significant truths, in her career and individually. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she admits. “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 the East Coast, Sennott began creating and acting comedy while pursuing performance at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she explains. “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. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at live shows with Ayo and uploading uproarious (and distinctly) unconventional comedy videos on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed several females obsessively obsessed with pregnancy; another portrayed being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being caught in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and eventually featuring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the intense thriller. The central motif of her journey, she says, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, instead of established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, adding amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Manifesting Dreams

Anyone who had doubts about her earlier will likely be feeling foolish today. Through she describes as a “incredibly circular” development, she seems to have manifested the perfect project. A few years back she uploaded a clip titled about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she mocked film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a series about LA residents balancing the perks of digital stardom (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being labeled as being a intoxicated stealer, and perhaps becoming a risky pariah). One might tempting to produce a program about online fame that was extremely idealized—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at the characters. This show avoids both, resulting in a depiction of advantaged twentysomething existence that’s honest about the mess 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 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