SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Staying with the Hollywood theme, there's a new TV show out called "I Love LA," starring Rachel Sennott, who's also the showrunner. You may have seen Sennott's unflattering depiction of Los Angeles in her viral 2019 video.
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RACHEL SENNOTT: It's LA. I'm addicted to drugs. We all are.
PFEIFFER: It racked up thousands of likes and shares and may have inspired the series. NPR's Kira Wakeam spoke with Sennott in LA, fittingly.
SENNOTT: Hi, Kira. Nice to meet you.
KIRA WAKEAM, BYLINE: (Inaudible). Lovely to meet you too.
SENNOTT: OK, we're - mic is on. Mic is hot.
WAKEAM: Mic is hot.
When we sat down to chat at Capri Club, a bar and restaurant in northeast LA, Sennott told me much of the inspiration for this show came from that period of her life when she was making those kinds of videos and trying to make it in Hollywood.
SENNOTT: It feels like I, like, knew what was going to happen before I knew what was going to happen or something. It does feel very meta.
WAKEAM: She had just moved to the city from New York, and she did not, in fact, love LA.
SENNOTT: When I was first here, I was like, I'm not - I hate it here. I don't live here, blah, blah, blah.
WAKEAM: Sennott, who's a big believer in astrology, says she was going through a period known as your Saturn return, when Saturn moves back to the same place it was when you were born. She says that typically happens in your late 20s.
SENNOTT: I think it's just that time where at the end of your 20s, you have to, like, look at your life and be like, am I doubling down on this? Am I blowing up my entire life? Am I changing everything?
WAKEAM: And those are exactly the kind of questions that Sennott's character, Maia, and her three best friends try to answer for themselves as they navigate work, life and love in their late 20s.
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JORDAN FIRSTMAN: (As Charlie) Honestly, just 'cause you're friends with someone at 22 does not mean you have to be friends with them for the rest of your life. You don't see me hang out with Avicii anymore, do you?
SENNOTT: (As Maia) Yeah, Charlie, he died.
FIRSTMAN: (As Charlie) I'm just saying, like, just, like, cut the negative energy out. You'll feel better. I know that dog, BRB. Hi.
WAKEAM: It wasn't always easy for Sennott to work through some of those past experiences while putting together the show.
SENNOTT: You sort of are looking at yourself with a magnifying glass.
WAKEAM: She says pieces of herself ended up in each of the characters. Here's executive producer and writer Emma Barrie.
EMMA BARRIE: The way she grew up, like, receiving information, creating a persona and, like, putting herself out there like that, and the show is really a lot about that. It's about perception and creating, you know, who am I to other people versus who am I to myself?
WAKEAM: Sennott says she and Barrie took inspiration from shows like "Entourage," where the characters exist in the universe of Hollywood and all that comes with it. But in "I Love LA," the internet is that all-encompassing force.
BARRIE: We just kind of wanted it to permeate the characters and the vibe.
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SENNOTT: (As Maia) Who even does music videos anymore? It's like, film a TikTok and move on.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) I know. I just...
SENNOTT: It was fun getting to write to that and put that out there, as opposed to doing, like, Hollywood. I think the internet, to me, feels more personal and more - it's just been a part of my life for so long.
WAKEAM: Something that was very new to Sennott? - being a first-time showrunner and a writer for a full season of television. She'd written pilots and feature films before, but being at the helm of a series was a whole new ballgame.
SENNOTT: Thank God I didn't know what the job was before I did it 'cause I would have been a lot more scared. Like, I think I was sort of like, show running, OK, so you run the show, I guess. And then I was like, oh, my God, there are so many parts to this job.
WAKEAM: Sennott even directed this season's final episode and credits much of her onset success to her behind the scenes team, including Barrie, who served as co-showrunner. She says the entire experience has been another full circle moment when it comes to her relationship to the city.
SENNOTT: In the process of making the show, I feel like I was like, oh, I'm here, and I love it.
WAKEAM: "I Love LA" is airing now on HBO on Sunday nights. Kira Wakeam, NPR News, Los Angeles.
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RANDY NEWMAN: (Singing) I love LA. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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