WOMEN WE LOVE: Rachel Sennott

With her sharp writing, fearless performances, and biting humor, Rachel Sennott has become the voice of a generation that can’t help but make us laugh through the chaos. From lesbian comedy Bottoms to heartbreaking dramedy I Used to Be Funny, she crafts characters that are messy, relatable, and brilliantly self-aware. With the recent addition of "I Love LA" to her burgeoning filmography, Sennott has proved herself as an interesting female showrunner along with Lena Dunham and Amy Sherman-Palladino. 

Rachel Anne Sennott was born in 1995 in Connecticut. She followed her dreams to NYU’s Tish Acting School and eventually the Stella Adler Studio. Like many modern comedians, from Bo Burnham to Quinta Brunson, Sennott started on the Internet.  First, she made chaotic Vine videos and later Twitter content, where her “messy girl" persona gained traction in the alt comedy scene. Her messy hair and raspy voice made her perfect to gain attention when ranting about bad dates, the economy, and L.A. disaffection. For many, this messiness was not only funny but cathartic, as she weaponized Millennial burnout and made it into comedic art. 

That sensibility found a cinematic outlet in Shiva Baby (2020), directed by Emma Seligman. Her breakout role was accompanied by many a panic attack. Playing Danielle, a bisexual college student trapped at a shiva with her sugar daddy (who is accompanied by his wife and newborn), Sennott turned discomfort into literal performance art. Her timing is razor-sharp, her facial expressions calibrated to oscillate between horror and hilarity. Critics called her performance a revelation, and they were right, as she carries Shiva Baby with the kind of chaotic brilliance that announces a star. 

After Shiva Baby, Sennott moved into the mainstream without losing her bite. In A24’s Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022), she transformed what could have been a one-note “annoying” role into something hysterically lived-in and real. Surrounded by rising stars like Maria Bakalova and Chase Sui Wonders alongside Pete Davidson and Amandla Stenberg, Sennott not only held her own but also asserted her biting comedic style. As Alice, she embodied every absurdity of Gen-Z self-awareness, the kind of person who cries “I’m an ally!” mid-meltdown while brandishing a podcast mic. Critics called her the standout of the ensemble, and suddenly Sennott wasn’t just the indie darling but an ensemble scene-stealer everyone remembered when the lights came up.

Then came Bottoms (2023), co-written with her Shiva Baby collaborator Emma Seligman. The queer teen comedy, equal parts satire and absurdist slapstick, follows two lesbian best friends who start a fight club to hook up with cheerleaders. It was violent, absurd, and deeply funny. Sennott and co-star Ayo Edebiri ("The Bear" Emmy-winner) had undeniable chemistry, grounding the chaos with genuine yearning heart. Bottoms proved that Sennott is not only a performer but a multi-hyphenate writer with a distinct feminist edge, unafraid to make something weird, loud, and full of feeling.

Her quieter turn in I Used to Be Funny showed yet another side of her talent. Playing a stand-up comic grappling with trauma, Sennott walked a tightrope between humor and heartbreak. Critics praised her emotional range, calling the performance "a tight rope walk between funny and sad." 

In 2025, Sennott became a television auteur with "I Love LA", her self-created HBO series (for many months going by the title "The Untitled Rachel Sennott Project") about a codependent group of friends navigating love, ambition, and self-delusion in Los Angeles. The show, which she writes, executive produces, and stars in, follows Maia (Sennott) and her circle of friends (including Odessa A’Zion and Josh Hutcherson) as they reunite after drifting apart, only to realize how much they still need -- and irritate -- each other.

On the surface, "I Love LA" feels like a spiritual successor to "Sex and the City" and "Girls", but filtered through Sennott’s uniquely post-modern lens. Whereas "Sex and the City" romanticized New York as a playground for love and ambition, and "Girls" dismantled that fantasy with neurotic realism, "I Love LA" pushes the lineage further. Sennott’s Los Angeles isn’t glossy or aspirational; it’s absurd, sprawling, and emotionally unstable, much like the people who inhabit it. Her version of female friendship is not about “having it all” but about falling apart together, over brunch, over texts, and over each other’s apartment couches.

The series channels the biting wit of Amy Sherman-Palladino’s dialogue and the emotional rawness of Lena Dunham’s storytelling but trades their East Coast neuroses for LA’s sunlit delusion. The characters talk in spirals, overshare in parking lots, and chase their creative dreams with both irony and desperation. Sennott’s writing captures that modern tension between self-awareness and self-sabotage, where even jokes about your mental health become a form of emotional survival.

And Sennott isn’t slowing down anytime soon. She’s set to co-write a biopic about Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss with Aubrey Plaza attached to star, and she’ll soon appear in The Moment, a mockumentary about pop stardom alongside Charli XCX and Alexander Skarsgård.

Not yet 30, Rachel Sennott has already rewritten what it means to be a comedian, a writer, and a woman in Hollywood. Her characters are chaotic, funny, and self-aware to the point of collapse, but that’s exactly why they resonate. Whether she’s tweeting about heartbreak or crafting a show about it, Sennott reminds us that comedy isn’t just about laughter. It’s about survival, and no one’s surviving with more style right now than her.