On this October day, Sennott is supposed to be editing the finale of I Love LA, which marks her directorial debut—the capstone of an eight-episode series about mourning one’s early 20s and surviving their conclusion. Told through the lens of Sennott’s own micro-generation, the show feels like a natural progression for Sennott, who mined similar material in a viral 2019 video known as “Come on, it’s LA.”
Like I Love LA heroine Maia—whom she also plays on the series—Sennott spent her early 20s on the East Coast before moving west. The show’s inciting incident comes when Maia, a junior staffer at a talent-management company, reconciles with her estranged college friend Tallulah (Odessa A’zion) and the two hatch a plan to make Tallulah the next It-girl influencer.
Sennott still isn’t accustomed to watching a heightened version of her 20s play out Sundays on HBO. “I remember watching Girls and Big Little Lies with my roommates in college. We would bake undercooked banana bread—wet—and then we would eat it with a spoon and go through three shows. It was just a ritual. There was something to talk about: ‘Did we all see Nate’s dad from Euphoria last night?’ I hope people enjoy [I Love LA] the same way.”
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Vanity Fair: What was the last thing that happened to you where you remember thinking, either genuinely or sarcastically, I love LA?
Rachel Sennott: Last week I did Jake Shane’s podcast in Brentwood. I never go to Brentwood; I live on the east side [of Los Angeles]. So me and Claire, my assistant, went and got sushi, and I was like, I love LA. This is fabulous. We did a podcast, now we’re having sushi lunch, one cigarette, and going home. Boom.
You only moved to Los Angeles five years ago. When did you feel that you had connected enough with the city to write about it?
I was writing stuff that didn’t end up getting made about missing the drama of my early 20s in New York, and I was like, Well, that’s interesting. Me falling down a flight of stairs at China Chalet—that’s what I want to write about? I felt like I had matured. You’ve left a version of yourself behind, but you don’t know who the new version of you is. I think that’s also something that, for our age group, feels especially resonant with COVID. Like, we missed out on a lot of our early 20s. I never felt like there was a period where it was just like, “vibe and see what happens.” It’s “panic and feel behind.” So that’s where the story started: Maia feeling isolated and abandoned, and unsure if she should stay in LA or go back to New York. Then I really, really fell in love with LA on a whole new level—this weird contrast of glamour and despair.
