Rachel Sennott sheds her old persona in I Love LA: ‘I was always the victim – now I try to be fair’

It takes confidence to laugh at yourself.

In the years that Rachel Sennott rose to fame – first through viral tweets and skits, then as a stand-up, later in scene-stealing roles in Bodies Bodies Bodies and The Idol – she found comedy in the ridiculousness of Gen Z life. But the best punchlines were pointed outward.

Now, with I Love LA, the HBO original series she creates, directs and stars in, Sennott has finally turned that lens on her own flaws – and found she’s the funniest subject of all.

“Earlier on, when I was tweeting jokes and doing stand-up – it was all good versus bad, black and white,” Sennott tells The National. “It was like, 'This guy is evil and I am a victim' – though maybe I was at that point – I was 23. But now I try to be a little more fair to everyone and recognise some of my own faults.”

It’s not just reflexive self-deprecation any more. Instead, it’s the kind of comedic insight that only comes when you love yourself enough to really look at the parts of yourself you once built armour around. It’s a sign, more than anything, that she’s growing as a person as much as she is a comedian.

“When I first started I had issues with eating disorders,” she told The Editorial Magazine in 2022. “My skin was really bad. I felt very insecure. I didn’t feel confident in my body. I didn’t feel good about myself. I went through so many little non-relationship things and that made me feel sad about myself

“I think that I really found control over that feeling by writing jokes about it. So when someone was treating me badly, in my head I was like, ‘This is awesome because I’m going to write a sick joke about it.’ So I found a way to feel more in control.”

That hunger for control – and her decision to let go of it – runs through I Love LA. The series follows two best friends drifting through their late twenties in a city that rewards performance over honesty. It’s chaotic, stylish and painfully self-aware, but beneath its satire sits something tender: a portrait of a woman learning to stop performing even for herself.

Sennott plays Maya, a 27-year-old working an office job, unhappy that her ex-best friend Tallulah (Odessa A'zion) has blown up in fame since they lost touch. To her friends and to herself, she projects success to mask how lost she really feels.

“Maya's kind of my control-freak tendencies,” says Sennott. “Talullah, meanwhile, is based on me when I lived in New York, and my messy party girl era. It's all pretty personal, but the personal stories morphed to fit the characters.

“I think this was specifically about that transitional period at the end of your twenties,” Sennott says. “Because in your early twenties you sort of feel like your whole friend group is together and then at the end of your twenties, people start going on side quests. I’m someone who’s like – everybody stay in the same place, where are you guys going, you’re my friends, don’t leave.”

It’s that fear of being left behind – socially, emotionally, creatively – that fuels I Love LA. Where her earlier characters masked insecurity with cynicism, here, Sennott lets the mask slip. They're all ridiculous, flawed and unguarded – which is rooted in honesty and kindness to herself and her characters.

Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games), who plays Maya's boyfriend Dylan, says: “What's amazing is that, in the pilot, when you meet all these characters, they're all so very clearly defined as who they are – they're sort of stereotypes, in ways.

“But then as the show develops, you're like breaking down and understanding why those stereotypes are there – why they are these people.”

For the first time, Sennott is not just acting in her own story. She’s directing it, too – helming the last episode of the season.

“I was nervous because I’ve always wanted to direct, but it was intimidating for me,” she says. “I always looked at directors and thought, how do you even do that? But once you’re there, it’s just communication and trust.

“I felt really lucky because I had the support of everyone, and I could even say to the cast, ‘Guys, it’s gonna be scary, we’re doing a lot,’ and everyone had my back. It was my first time directing, but because we’d been through so much together, I felt safe to make mistakes.”

That willingness to make mistakes feels like the truest sign of change. “I used to think I had to have every line perfect before we shot it,” she says. “Now I’m like, the best stuff happens when you mess up.”

Her cast noticed the shift, too. “Rachel makes us feel like equals,” says co-star Jordan Firstman (Charlie). “She’s doing a hundred jobs at once, but she never lets that pressure show.”

“Well, maybe a little bit,” adds True Whitaker (Alani), laughing. “Remember her anxiety smile?”

That shift – from anxious control to (mostly) relaxed collaboration – mirrors how Sennott's relationship with Los Angeles has changed.

“I first came out here to be on a sitcom during Covid, and I felt really isolated,” she says. “Any move to a new city is hard but I gradually put down roots, made new friends, found my neighbourhood, and in the process of making the show I was like, damn, I really do love LA.”

For actors like Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester, who plays Maya's manager Alyssa, the show also offered space to evolve – to play characters who aren’t defined by how they’re seen through someone else’s eyes.

“Being a woman who’s a little older, I get the opportunity to play a character that isn’t about fulfilling some romance,” Meester says. “She’s an older woman, so there’s so much more texture there, and it’s just so enjoyable to lean into that and have fun.”

It’s fitting that I Love LA, a show about women learning to stop performing, became a place where its cast could do the same. Under Sennott’s direction, the humour feels looser, the emotions less guarded.

Her jokes are no longer reflexive projection against her own insecurities – they’re a safe space to let both herself and her cast members be unapologetically who they truly are, warts and all.

It may not be the kind of brutal honesty that defines LA, but it’s the kind that Sennott wants to define her career on moving forward.

“My hope is that my humour has become a lot more nuanced than it was before,” says Sennott. “I think my point of view has matured as I've matured. And hopefully it's got funnier and better and – more gooder, I guess. That's the word I'd use, even though it isn't one. Gooder.”

I Love LA will be streaming in the Middle East on OSN+ from Monday