Rachel Sennott on ‘I Love L.A.’ ‘rollercoaster,’ Season 2 plans
In this week’s episode of The Envelope podcast, Rachel Sennott discusses finding the voice of “I Love L.A.” — and finding her footing as series creator — during a tumultuous time in her life.
Kelvin Washington: Welcome to The Envelope, Kelvin Washington alongside you know who, Yvonne Villarreal, Mark Olsen. Always great to have you two here and spend some time with you. We talked about it earlier, we had Emmy season — a few weeks ago we discussed it. But now Emmy nominations are on the way. Yvonne, I’ll start with you, just maybe someone, a show, a couple of things you’re looking at saying, “Hey, I would love to see this or that person nominated.”
Yvonne Villarreal: I wanna give some shout-outs to the women right now. I was really frustrated when Rhea Seehorn didn’t get love until the final season of “Better Call Saul,” and I’m hoping — and I do have a lot of hope — that she will be recognized for “Pluribus.” [I] was a really big fan of “The Comeback” this season. I would like to [see] Lisa Kudrow get in there. Show-wise, I would like to see “The Testaments” in there. I don’t know how much of a dark horse that one is, but that’s my pick for show.
Washington: You’ve been riding “The Testaments.” What about you, Mark?
Olsen: I’m sort of leapfrogging over nominations, and I’m just thinking about what would be exciting on the show. And last year, I remember Stephen Colbert won for talk show kind of right after his show had been canceled, and that seemed like a very exciting moment. And so this year, with Jimmy Kimmel, where this is the first Emmy cycle since he had his suspension last year, and really has been in the news, I just think if he were to be nominated and then to win, that just would be such an exciting moment at the show. What’s he gonna say? I just would really love to see that.
Washington: Yeah, he seems like he would have some things to say, right? Because just kind of the nature of who he is. We’ll have to wait and see. And just for me, a couple of people. Just a fan of this particular person, Janelle James is hilarious to me. She plays in “Abbott Elementary.” She plays that role great. And then this one is no real surprise, probably 50-plus-year career, but Martin Short. Every time I see him, he’s amazing, steals the scene. So those are folks that just jump off on the radar for me.
All right, I’ll get to you, Mark. You had a chance to sit down with Rachel Sennott of “I Love L.A.,” creator and star of it. Tell me a little bit more about that.
Olsen: She’s been kind of a real, like, bright light on the comedy scene for the last few years in films like “Shiva Baby,” “Bodies Bodies Bodies” and “Bottoms,” and, you know, she also was like a writer as well as a performer. And so with “I Love L.A.,” which is a look at sort of like the young creative class in Los Angeles, she is the star of the show, she created the show, she writes on the show, she’s executive producer, she actually made her directing debut with one of the episodes. And so it’s just exciting to see her sort of really like come into her voice and come into her own with this new show.
Washington: Kind of reminds me a little bit of, you know, now maybe a decade ago Issa Rae’s surge in L.A. and comedy creating, and then Riz Ahmed, who you spoke with last week — same thing creating and starring and stuff. Seems like that’s the energy [we’re] getting from a lot of the young talent. Well, here is Mark and Rachel now.
Rachel Sennott, creator and star of HBO’s “I Love L.A.”
(Evan Mulling / For The Times)
Mark Olsen: We’re here with Rachel Sennott, creator, executive producer, writer, star, and for the first time, director on the show “I Love L.A.,” as well as co-creator and writer on “Big Mistakes.” That’s a lot.
Rachel Sennott: When you say it like that, I’m like, “Oh, my God.” And I’m also a friend, daughter, let’s not forget girlfriend. Yeah, those are all things that I am doing. And I am so grateful and having so much fun doing that.
Olsen: Hopefully this isn’t something that just I get a kick out of, but we’re here at the L.A. Times offices in El Segundo, and the Randy Newman song “I Love L.A.,” one of the first lines in the song is “Rolling down the Imperial Highway.” And we are in fact on Imperial Highway.
Sennott: We’re here right now. We’re living it.
Olsen: Tell me about the title of the show, its relationship to the song and what was it that you liked about having the show called “I Love L.A.”
Sennott: We were between two titles for a while, “I Love L.A.” and “Climbers,” and the reason we went with “I Love L.A.” is because in the process of making the show, I moved here from New York and I had a hard time when I was first here. And in the process of filming the pilot, I really fell in love with L.A., and I think getting to make something here, I all of a sudden saw L.A. through this lens where everything was like a movie. I would go on my walks that I usually go on. I would walk through my neighborhood, I would go to my spots, and I just saw it through this different lens, and I was really falling in love with it in the process of making the show. And I think with “Climbers,” that title fell a little bit — it was a double meaning of like social climbers and then also, being the age that I am, where I feel like ever since I got to college, ever since I became an adult, there’s been this chaotic energy in the world and uncertain ground where things never felt expected. It was always unexpected events. Graduating into COVID and then there was a strike and everything. So I feel like Sisyphus, where you’re always pushing the rock up the hill and it’s never enough. But we were worried that “Climbers” would seem too negative … We didn’t want to set people up already judging the characters.
Olsen: And then what has it been like for you learning to be a showrunner in making “I Love L.A.”? It’s funny, your co-showrunner Emma Barrie, she mentioned how you were very organized, but she was struck that you had everything in a pink binder with horses on it. So it was you trying to learn this new thing while also holding on to your essence.
Sennott: I feel so grateful for everyone who works on the show with me. I learned a lot from Emma. I learned from Lorene [Scafaria], who inspired me so much as a director. Aida [Rodgers], our producer, Amy [Gravitt] and Allie [Wasserman] at HBO; Max [Silvestri], who’s one of our EPs and writers. Showrunning is a million different jobs, and some of the jobs I’d done before, some of them I hadn’t, and I felt like I got to see different people shine in certain things, people who are more talented or more skilled at structure than me, people who have directed before, people who understand shots and basically learn from everyone and see that everyone wants the show to be the best it can be. They’re bringing stuff to the table. And so I benefited from everyone else’s skills and talents and just being like, “If you know how to do this better than me, I’m gonna learn from you and watch you and hopefully take from that so I can do my job better.”
Olsen: In a lot of the press as you’ve been talking about the show, you’ve been talking a lot about the concept of the Saturn return and this sort of chaotic period people have in their late 20s. You yourself now are 30 —
Sennott: Yes, I made it. I literally just finished. I was relieved, but my Saturn return was the process, getting the show picked up and the first season of the show. That was my Saturn return.
Olsen: Can you already feel that something has settled or things are different somehow?
Sennott: Yes, a thousand percent. My Saturn return, the dates that it was the strongest were the month around when the show got picked up. Making the pilot was so amazing and I learned so much. And then I was in this moment where I had to pick — basically, I couldn’t take on acting jobs because I was gonna hopefully do the show, but I didn’t know if the show was picked up yet or not. And so I had to say no to certain things and kind of take this leap. At the same time I went through a breakup, and then I got arrested for having CBD in the Cayman Islands. And it was just a very chaotic month of my life where I was like in jail for six hours on a break with my boyfriend, so he, like, had no idea where I was, and I was like, I don’t even know if I have a show, I just said no to this other thing. I just felt like I didn’t know what was happening. I’m someone who it’s hard for me to take risks sometimes, and that was a big risk and leap into what I thought I should be doing. And then the rest of it was learning for the first season how to do a job I’d never done before. Obviously, I still have more to learn, but I think that was a big Saturn return for me, the roller coaster of it.
Olsen: It’s so interesting to hear you say that you think of yourself as a person who’s afraid of risk, because that’s not my impression of you.
Sennott: You’re like, “Stop taking risks. Chill on the risks, every second.” No, I think it’s more [that] I didn’t necessarily believe in myself as a creator on my own, and that was really scary for me. That was the risk, I think.
Olsen: Because especially in building up to making “I Love L.A.,” in your career, I feel like you’ve created this comedic persona for yourself. What is the biggest distinction between the Rachel I think I know and like the actual you?
Sennott: You mean the characters that I play? Or like the persona?
Olsen: These sort of hard-charging, very ambitious, but maybe not always understanding of themselves characters, and you. I’m just interested in how you see the distinction between that persona and the actual you.
Sennott: Well, I hope that the characters that I’ve played have been somewhat different from each other. I think “Shiva Baby,” that character, was a little bit more anxiety-inward. Alice in “Bodies” was way more outward and kind of no filter, said every inside thought. Maia on “I Love L.A.,” I think, is kind of bitter in the beginning of the first season and is pinning her failures, blaming them, on her friend. All of those characters, I always draw on some element of myself. I think all actors, you have to find some connection to the character. But I think I’m hopefully more grounded and balanced and mature than the character. I hope.
Olsen: You’ve talked about how “I Love L.A.” really explores the foibles and challenges that people have leading these very, like, online lives and the way that people nowadays are really sort of tethered to their phones all the time. Is that something that you feel like you grapple with yourself? Is it something you yourself have had to kind of get over?
Sennott: I would say I started my career on the internet, and I grew up on the internet, and basically, I created a different sort of persona on the internet that was based in truth of a time when I was in my early 20s in New York, and it was a lot more messy and a little chaotic, and I was just going through things in my life at that time [that inspired] — I say “writing,” but like the tweets, the jokes, the videos, whatever, that were coming out of me. And then I felt I changed, but I still wanted to kind of project that character. And so I actually ended up putting that character into Tallulah [played by Odessa A’zion]. And I think Maia was a little bit more the version of myself when I first moved to L.A. and I felt isolated and it was during COVID, and I felt I was kind of gripping onto my friends in a codependent way. And so I think the show is sort of dealing with, whether or not you’re an influencer or person online, anyone who’s grown up on the internet is projecting some sort of version of themselves. So I think it was that I was trying to explore.
Olsen: You mentioned that the character of Tallulah is this version of you that you used to be. So what was it like for you creating this character that was almost like your id unleashed?
Sennott: It felt like I was separating myself from her. At first, [it] maybe could have felt like a caricature. And then when we cast Odessa, who is so talented and just, as an actor, she has such depth and range, and I think she asked questions and brought so much to it. Then it actually made me sever myself from the character, and the character became its own thing that she brought to life.
Olsen: Your character, Maia, in some ways is the audience surrogate, she’s kind of the most “normal” character on the show. And considering that in “Bottoms” or “Bodies Bodies Bodies” you often were the outrageous character, what has it been like for you to play this character that’s a little more self-contained?
Sennott: It’s been fun. I think we sort of found her during the first season. I feel that Episodes 6 through 8 are really where the show finds its footing and where we find what’s the comedy of Maia. It takes a little for her to kind of crack open, what’s funny about her as a character, but also I think Tallulah is almost like an agent of change for her — Maia was set in her ways and sort of struggling and depressed, and I think Tallulah puts her on track, and she’s going through her Saturn return and all that stuff. And so I think we get to see at the end of the season and just having been writing Season 2, I think that we get see her do a lot more fun stuff.
Olsen: It’s funny, as viewers, a lot of times people say, “Oh, you know, there’s this show you should watch, it really gets going on like Episode 3” or whatever. And I don’t think I’ve ever heard a creator say before, like, “Oh, 6, 7, and 8, we figured it out.” Do you feel you knew that in the moment, or has that only come to you as you’ve been working on Season 2?
Sennott: I think as we were editing the first season. Tone is something that you can say, like, “We want it to be like, this needs this, and it’s that and that and the tone of that.” But tone is what you find in the edit. I think you shoot different versions of a line, of a scene, and then you piece it together. And I think for me, that’s when I felt like, “This is the tone of the show. This is the world of the show.” And in writing Season 2 as well, just living more in that world.
Olsen: You kind of touched on this, but the characters on the show, they kind of skirt this line between being endearing and annoying. What is it that you like about that?
Sennott: Because I think that’s how people are. I am not interested in seeing perfect people or people who are flawed in a way that’s not actually real. So I love all the characters. I think Alani [played by True Whitaker], for example, is someone where you could really easily be like, “Oh, a nepo baby, she’s so privileged, whatever.” I think she’s the character with the biggest heart. She’s the best friend out of the whole group. She cares for everyone. She’s so deeply sensitive. And she’s actually been through a lot of s— and she drops these little things, these clues where you’re like, “Gee, she went through something crazy but is choosing to look at life half-full,” and I think that’s fun. I like the characters who make you feel or expect something of them and then show you another side. Charlie [played by Jordan Firstman] I think does that as well, where you meet him and you think he’s a little acerbic, he’s a little judgmental, and then he goes through loss and grief when Lukas, spoilers, Lukas Landry dies, RIP Lukas. That’s really hard for him. I’ve been friends with Jordan for so long, and I love him so much. I think he’s so talented. But I think he showed a totally new side of himself with the character.
Olsen: I agree. I found those scenes very touching. There’s an emotion there that’s kind of unexpected. Another moment that I really like in the show is Odessa’s character, she wants to change a dinner reservation to five people at 8 o’clock. And then you have to spend hours trying to make that happen. And I really appreciated how it’s something that sounds like it should be simple, and for some people it’s no big deal. But then for other people, it’s the biggest hurdle imaginable. Did you like that the show explores this sort of proximity to ease? Sometimes you end up at this party in a big, big house, but it’s not your house. Was that something you wanted to explore about life in L.A.?
Sennott: Totally. There’s also something specific to L.A. and specific to the industry we’re exploring — which is the internet as opposed to Hollywood — that I would say is relatable to me, to anyone in their late 20s, early 30s. When you’re in your early 20s, everyone’s sort of grouped together or feels like they’re in the same bucket. It’s like, “Oh we’re all doing this same thing, we’re all roommates, we’re all in school together, we’re all whatever.” But people make decisions that you don’t even see. I feel like the first time I found out that one of my friends had a SEP IRA, I was like, “When did we all decide that we’re getting SEP IRAs?” And it was a friend who loves to party, and I was thrown. Now I’m panicking I didn’t do that. Or who’s getting in a serious relationship, whatever. People start making decisions in their late 20s, all of a sudden everyone’s off on different paths. It’s like, “Wait, you’re getting married, but you’re still partying the way that we did when we were in college.” This person is moving, this person is changing their career path. And so you all of a sudden feel a little bit betrayed or on your own, and it’s isolating, and that is something that, yes, we’re doing it through a specific lens of L.A. and this world and these characters, but I think it’s really relatable to people at that age.
Olsen: I’ve heard you describe yourself as a zillennial cusp.
Sennott: Yeah, I’m cusp, and I feel like I relate to a little bit of both.
Olsen: But do you feel a pressure for the show to feel like some sort of a generational statement, to capture these kind of big-picture things?
Sennott: No. Ayo [Edebiri] and I were texting each other because there’s always an article that’s like, “Turns out these b— are 30. Yeah. They’ve been lying the whole time. They said they’re Gen Z.” I’m like, “I didn’t say anything. I was born in ’95. I’m 30.” Call me what you want, but I was just writing to what I feel at the time. I think people who grew up on the internet in the way that I did will relate to it, but I think you can relate too if you’re older or you’re younger.
Olsen: As people are writing about the show, they very frequently are referencing “Girls,” “Insecure,” “Sex and the City.” But I’ve heard you reference “Entourage” quite a bit. Could you explain that?
Sennott: “Girls” and “Sex and the City” and “Insecure,” all of those shows, all HBO shows, are formative to me as an artist. I remember watching “Girls,” I was in high school and looking at colleges with my dad and we went and toured [New York University], and in the hotel room that night, he was like, “I heard so much about this new show, ‘Girls,’ we should watch it. And it was the episode with Patrick Wilson where they f— in his nice apartment the whole time, and we turned it on and my dad was like, “OK, you can watch this later on your own, this is for you.” And I remember going to bed being like, “I’ve gotta go to New York, like whoa, this is crazy.” I think naturally those were already gonna inspire me. “Entourage” and “Atlanta,” those were two references that I mentioned a lot when we were making the show. “Entourage” because I feel I got to come up in this industry with my friends, and when I’m with my friends I feel completely invincible, and so there was that aspect. It was like, “I wanna see ‘Entourage’ but from a different point of view and perspective and a slightly different industry.” And then “Atlanta,” there is already having a family relationship and friendship on top of managing. Like how [Earn] manages Paperboi. And then I think “Atlanta” did such a great job of capturing a city that has almost magical realism elements to it. And L.A., a lot of the time, there’s things that happen here that are crazy, that feel almost unreal, but they are real. So that was a big inspiration for the show as well. Like the opening of the show, sex during an earthquake. That’s happened to me, but it also feels a little ridiculous, but it happens in L.A.
Olsen: You mentioned earlier that in waiting for the show to come around, you felt you were having to turn things down or you were really having to sort of change your mindset in a way. Can you talk a little more about that? With the show “Big Mistakes” that you created with Dan Levy, is that one of the things that you had to step away from or readjust how you were gonna be involved because of the fact that you were going to have “I Love L.A.”?
Sennott: I was more talking about acting roles. When you step into a creator role, it’s a different mindset than acting jobs and you have to commit to a longer time period. When you’re just acting in things, you can pop in, pop out and you leave set and you’re like, “I love you guys so much. I’ll see you in a year at the premiere,” which is fabulous too — love doing that. But when you are creating something, you’re in it from beginning to end, and you really wanna give your all to it. So I think I was more talking about just, like, betting on myself as a creator, as opposed to just acting.
Olsen: And how has that felt now that you’re on the other side of it, with one season of “I Love L.A.” made? How do you feel about having made that decision, having bet on yourself like that?
Sennott: I think it’s changed me, in a way where I’m so happy I did it. And it’s sometimes harder and there’s more parts to it, but I feel more in myself creatively than I ever have before, I think.
Olsen: It changed you how?
Sennott: Just because you all of a sudden see all the different parts of the process of making something and all these different jobs that maybe I wasn’t as aware of before. And I think there’s also something beautiful about popping into something and acting and just being like, “I am present as my character. This is what I am thinking about. I’m thinking about what does the character want.” And that’s amazing too. But I feel so lucky to have been able to experience other parts of making something.
Olsen: What was it like learning how to switch hats, especially during production? I would imagine you have a producer brain, you have an actor brain, then for one episode you have a director brain.
Sennott: I had to like sort of take it day by day. There are days where it’s a lighter scene for me and I can be on the side approving locations, taking meetings during lunch. There was a day where I had two sex scenes, for Episodes 6 and 7. So we shot the end of 7, the fight scene with me and Josh [Hutcherson], and the sex scene where it’s Maia and Dylan but she’s fantasizing about Ben. It was a lot. And so I was like, to Emma and Max and Aida, “Let’s not do any other meetings today in the middle of the day,” and they were like, “Totally got you.” That day I was more focused. I really needed to be present in the scene and have this be my main focus. And then on a day where I’m shooting like, “you’re texting on your phone” and “you’re walking on your walking treadmill,” I can do other stuff. So I think it was just taking each day as it comes and having so much support from the rest of the team.
Olsen: It’s wild to think of just one day providing all this material for the show. Just a single day could be so pivotal.
Sennott: Yeah, totally. A lot can happen in a day and then other days you’re like, “I’m just opening doors.” You never know.
Olsen: How did you come to conceive of how you kind of wanted to depict the online world, how people text, whether they’re FaceTiming and things like that? The show obviously exists with that world, as part of it, but you didn’t spend a whole lot of time animating texts. How did you come to conceive of how to depict people’s online life?
Sennott: I wanted it to feel how it does in the real world, which is the internet is just a big part of everyone’s life, but people aren’t explaining it to each other all the time. So we wanted to have the internet feel like the real internet, but our own internet. We didn’t want to ever reference anything that would date us because the internet moves so fast. So, like, Coke Larry, for example, when Dylan gets made into a meme, whatever, that’s our own thing, but it moves the same way as the internet does. And we tried not to have too much phone screens, texting, whatever. Like for example you [just] see snippets of Tallulah making videos or posting or whatever. In “Entourage,” you don’t really see that much of Vince acting. You see all the stuff around it. So that was sort of our model for the show.
Olsen: You directed the final episode of the season. Do you expect to be directing more in Season 2?
Sennott: Yeah.
Olsen: And how did you find the experience? What did you like about it?
Sennott: I loved it. You’re just in every aspect of the process. You are thinking about everything, and it was so engaging and exciting, and afterwards I felt fried, and I like crawled onto the edit couch and I was like limp and it took a lot out of me. People describe it like giving birth. And then you’re like, “I gotta do it again.” So that’s kind of how I felt on the other end.
Olsen: Can you talk a little about that final episode? The show is called “I Love L.A.” You send the main characters to New York for the final episode, which has turned into kind of a controversial decision. A lot of people have talked about that. Can you talk just a little about deciding to end the season in New York?
Sennott: I think it was because it was sort of addressing the fact that these girls went to school in New York together. They lived in New York and they chose to move to L.A., and I think when you do that there’s always going to be the push and pull of the two cities, and going back to New York, it was almost like getting a chance to get back together with your ex and being like, “You know what, there’s a reason it didn’t work out.” And they end the episode with, “I miss L.A.” So I think that’s kind of what we were aiming to do.
Olsen: And then before we wrap up, I should be sure to ask, is there anything that you could tell us about Season 2? What can people look forward to?
Sennott: It’s sort of what we were talking about earlier, Episodes 6 through 8, I think, I just feel we’ve locked in to our tone, we get to see other sides of characters we haven’t before, we go deeper on certain characters. And I think there’s some fun stuff that we set up in the finale that we get to explore.
