The actress and writer discussing her side-splitting comedy about the grotty allure of Gen Z life

Rachel Sennott enters the video call and immediately begins an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, seeming genuinely regretful. She is only a couple of minutes behind, she needs to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Thankfully, for a writer, that’s exactly what one hopes to encounter. Besides, it’s quite predictable. Viewers familiar with the boldly openly gay and unapologetically crass film Bottoms—which she collaborated on with her creative partner and starred in alongside her friend the talented actress—will understand that Sennott possesses plenty to say, ranging from on roles, intimacy, or the appeal of starting a teen combat group. Plus, after watching her recent multi-episode show titled I Love LA, it is clear that she carries even more perspectives on the darker side of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, she represents an honorary member to younger audiences, on the cusp skilled for connecting both generations).

Guiding Lights and Creative Vision

The comparisons to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and Sennott readily acknowledges enthusiastic, citing the show together with Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Donald Glover’s series as influences for the project, which tracks the travails of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also aspiring agent Maia. Notably, the largest influence on concept went to the popular sitcom, that HBO sitcom about an emerging Hollywood star making his way in a corrupt entertainment industry (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She discovered it amid COVID-19, became “hooked”, and resolved to create a new version 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 says. The inspiration for the series originated—in part—from her own, originally rocky, relocation to Los Angeles and from her saturn return, a popular event for astrology heads. It was an era that involved her learn major truths, professionally and in private life. “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 was almost like these biblical tests …”

Early Beginnings

Brought up in Connecticut, the star began creating and acting humor while pursuing theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “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. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

Sennott seized control, appearing at amateur nights with her friend and uploading hilarious (and decidedly) unconventional online content on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted several females obsessively fixated on having babies; a different one imagined working at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being caught in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Emma through the university’s film scene and eventually starring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a religious event with shades of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her journey, she notes, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, as opposed to traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, stating with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”

Rising Success

Those who had doubts about Sennott previously will surely be regretting it currently. In what she describes as a “astonishingly complete” development, she has achieved her dream vehicle. In 2019 she uploaded a video titled “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a series about Angelenos balancing benefits of online celebrity (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being labeled as being a intoxicated stealer, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). It would be easy to produce a program about online fame that was extremely idealized—or, worse, one that mocked at the characters. This show avoids both, creating a depiction of advantaged twentysomething living that’s honest about the grot and the appeal.

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 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