{"id":351233,"date":"2025-11-02T22:18:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T22:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/351233\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T22:18:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T22:18:16","slug":"rachel-sennott-made-i-love-la-about-internet-it-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/351233\/","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Sennott Made ‘I Love LA’ About ‘Internet It Girls’"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a TV show centering on twentysomethings navigating Los Angeles, \u201cI Love LA\u201d<\/a> doesn\u2019t concern itself too much with Hollywood, with the main throughline of the HBO series centering on Rachel Sennott\u2019s Maia managing the rising career of influencer and best friend Tallulah (Odessa A\u2019zion). It\u2019s a lens of the city that felt authentic and fresh for creator\/EP\/star Sennott, who kickstarted her career online before writing, producing and starring in films like \u201cShiva Baby\u201d and \u201cBottoms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t really seen the internet as an industry depicted in film and TV yet \u2014 It felt refreshing and exciting to be in LA and not have it be about Hollywood,\u201d Sennott told TheWrap, joking \u201cI\u2019m sick of Hollywood. We\u2019re here every day \u2014 let\u2019s do phones. We wanted to do something that felt very specific to now \u2026 a lot of today\u2019s artists [and] \u2026 so many young people are online.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like now you hear more, \u2018I want to be internet famous\u2019 than \u2018I want to be a movie star,\u2019\u201d c0-showrunner Emma Barrie said, while Sennott added that movie stars are logging onto TikTok for makeup tips. \u201cRachel had so much experience with being online, being on the internet \u2014 you can mine so much from it. It\u2019s just a fascinating world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With that, Sennott and Barrie set out to create \u201c\u2018Entourage\u2019 for internet it girls,\u201d narrowing in on the business aspect of influencing for the HBO comedy series. Their other inspirations included Lena Dunham\u2019s \u201cGirls,\u201d to which \u201cI Love LA\u201d has already drawn plenty of comparisons, as well as \u201cSex and the City\u201d and \u201cAtlanta.\u201d \u201cIt was putting everything in a blender and then taking an ounce of that, and then taking Rachel\u2019s real experiences and creating our own tone,\u201d Barrie said.<\/p>\n

Sennott drew from her own journey of moving from New York City to Los Angeles during the COVID-19 pandemic, recalling that she felt \u201cisolated and unsure of where all [her] friends were going to end up.\u201d Ultimately, Sennott pointed to her Saturn return \u2014 a period of growth and transition that typically occurs in one\u2019s late 20s \u2014 as the inspiration for the series\u2019 plot.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy early 20s were really chaotic and messy and then my mid-20s, I felt like I settled. Then in the last few years it almost felt like the all the chaos from my early 20s came back and everything got shaken up,\u201d Sennott said.<\/p>\n

In \u201cI Love LA,\u201d that chaos takes form in Maia\u2019s estranged best friend, Tallulah, who unexpectedly shows up years after she traded LA to move back to New York. \u201cMaia is like how I was before my Saturn Return hit. That old version coming in and shaking things up, and then ultimately for the better, because Maia and Tallulah are better together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sennott was always attached to play Maia, and the main friend group quickly took shape with A\u2019zion as Tallulah, Jordan Firstman as Charlie and True Whitaker as Alani, with Sennott noting the cast felt \u201cmeant to be,\u201d even as Whitaker\u2019s unique comedic timing shifted what the duo had originally planned for her character.<\/p>\n

Sennott and Barrie recalled being blown away by A\u2019zion, who \u201cstarted sobbing\u201d in the middle of an emotional scene during a Zoom audition. \u201cWe needed someone who you could just believe is this really magnetic, charismatic person online,\u201d Barrie said. \u201cshe had that \u2018Yeah, of course, she would be famous online.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Leighton Meester, who plays Maia\u2019s excruciating boss Alyssa, was also attached to \u201cI Love LA\u201d since the pilot. \u201cEvery little breath and cough \u2026 she\u2019s a scene stealer every time,\u201d Sennott said.<\/p>\n

\"i-love-la-show-image-hbo\"Jordan Firstman, Odessa A\u2019Zion and True Whitaker in \u201cI Love LA\u201d (HBO)<\/p>\n

Josh Hutcherson, who plays Maia\u2019s longterm boyfriend, Dylan, came onboard through a recasting, replacing Miles Robbins, who appeared in the initial pilot before the character was altered during the writing process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the pilot process, you write what you hope the show will be, but of course, it goes through changes, and so the character just changed,\u201d Sennott explained, noting she hopes to work with Robbins down the line in a different role. \u201cJosh is so talented, I think he\u2019s really funny, and he brought sort of this natural, outsider perspective to the friend group, where he has a different point of view than the characters \u2014 the things that matter to him are different than what matter to the rest of the characters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe fit into that role as boyfriend who all the friends love, and he\u2019s so sweet \u2026 but they are of two different worlds,\u201d Barrie added.<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Josh\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

While Sennott has plenty of experience playing double duty in front of and behind the camera on the film side, \u201cI Love LA\u201d marks her first foray into showrunning, with Sennott noting she leaned on Barrie, who has writing credits on \u201cBarry\u201d and \u201cSplitting Up Together\u201d and was set up with Sennott on a \u201cblind date\u201d by HBO.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmma has so much more experience than me as a writer in rooms, and so she really helped me through the process. But we had both never showrun before, so it really felt like we were a team and collaborating,\u201d Sennott said, adding that she never felt embarrassed to ask things new to her in the process. \u201cWe would be in a meeting where everyone\u2019s saying a word over and over and then I would be like, what does the word \u2018vestigial\u2019 mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI lean on Rachel all the time because she\u2019s got the charisma and the stories and the attitude,\u201d Barrie said.<\/p>\n

Sennott noted she also leaned on HBO comedy chief Amy Gravitt, HBO SVP of original programming Allie Wasserman, EP Max Silvestri and \u201cCurb Your Enthusiasm\u201d writer Jeff Schaffer, who Sennott admitted she would text in the \u201cmiddle of the night being like, \u2018Jeff, I\u2019m scared,\u2019 and he would be, \u2018it\u2019s OK.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Rachel\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

For much of the development process, the half-hour comedy was dubbed the untitled Rachel Sennott project, which is so ingrained in the show\u2019s identity that the \u201cuntitled\u201d title lined the premiere\u2019s red carpet. Barrie noted that \u201cI Love LA\u201d feels \u201ca little tongue in cheek\u201d with \u201chow hard their experience is in their late 20s in LA.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey do love LA and we do love LA,\u201d Barrie said \u201cFor me, at least, [the show] feels so much like a love letter to LA, a little bit, even knowing how terrible it is here sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the contrast of both,\u201d Sennott said. \u201cIt\u2019s the glamor and the despair, it\u2019s all of those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The series captures the city\u2019s quintessential locations \u2014 including being the first production to shoot inside an Erewhon \u2014 adding to the growing list of shows that prioritize shooting in LA. \u201cWe had the most incredible crew who was also just so excited to finally shoot here \u2014 some of them were, like, \u2018I haven\u2019t shot here in 15 years,\u2019 \u201d Barrie said. \u201cI\u2019ve lived here most of my life, and Rachel\u2019s lived here a long time, and so to be able to take these real places and these real experiences we\u2019ve had and turn them into more cinematic moments felt really special.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Season 1 launching Sunday nights on HBO, Sennott revealed she would hope for the series to run for several seasons. \u201cI had so much fun making it and I want to do it again, because it is really just the most amazing group of
people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll do it forever if we can,\u201d Barrie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI Love LA\u201d premieres Sunda at 10:30 p.m. ET\/PT\u00a0on HBO and HBO Max.<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"i-love-la-josh-hutcherson-rachel-sennott-odessa-a-zion-true-whitaker-jordan-firstman-hbo\"\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a TV show centering on twentysomethings navigating Los Angeles, \u201cI Love LA\u201d doesn\u2019t concern itself too much…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":351234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,5560,104013,2961,224,5337,100711],"class_list":{"0":"post-351233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-hbo","11":"tag-i-love-la","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-rachel-sennott"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115482428816116051","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}