Rachel Sennott is Living, Laughing & Loving
“I feel like I blinked, and my life is completely different”, Rachel Sennott tells me over zoom; having just woken up in New York, jet-lagged, following a quick trip to Rome for costume fitting and rehearsals. Like many of us, her life looks unimaginably different from the one she was living pre-covid.
I’m talking to Rachel the day before her latest project, A24’s slasher-whodunnit Bodies Bodies Bodies, has its premiere. She’s in New York as a visitor rather than the self-confessed New Yorker she used to be. She’s doing press, attending screenings, and working on the edit of her next film. It all feels a lot more serious than her previous years living here, the ones spent attending NYU and building a huge following on Twitter for her short-form comedy sketches filmed on her phone.
“I love the new pace of my life and where my life is now. I definitely don’t want to go back to being miserable at 23, but sometimes I feel like I blinked, and it happened very quickly.”
“Before, the work was very much me being like, go to the open mic, write your script, make some little sketches with your friends. Now it’s like, come to work because we need you.” The crucial difference is that now Rachel has hit Hollywood; and is carving a name for herself, representing the neurosis of a quarter-life crisis in its various forms. What started as self-aware tweets became a starring role in her best friend’s film, Shiva Baby, which led to a part in the sitcom Call Your Mother, and now, the reason we’re speaking; playing a self-obsessed podcast host in Bodies Bodies Bodies.
Her character in the film, Alice, as described by Rachel, “just wants to have a good time. Like, she wants everyone to have fun. She loves to laugh. She loves to dance. She likes to party.” She’s the type of girl that lives inside of all of us, yet is all-too-easy to poke fun at when encountering in the real world. She’s a podcast host, an archetype which has been the source of a thousand Twitter memes — usually aimed at the swathes of straight men who decide to put their opinions on the record. “Alice definitely wants to be liked, not that every podcast host wants to be liked, but thinks she should be liked more or feels that more.” Alice is the content demon living within us all; desperate to build a personal brand and leave her imprint on the world.
But despite her character being the type of girl many of us would find reason to unfollow, Rachel adored her until the bitter end. “I was on Alice’s side the whole time. I love Alice. She wants everyone to get along. And then something terrible happens.” In the case of Bodies Bodies Bodies, the terrible thing is, in fact, murder, and not a minor social media slip up. The film is laced with Gen Z sentiment, taking on toxic friendships, our obsession with personal brands, and the performativity of our socio-political landscape. “I think you have to be on the side of your character and never judge them while you’re doing it. You know what I mean?”
“I think the internet has broken everyone a little, which is sometimes good, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it definitely has.”
As someone who built the beginnings of their career in virtual spaces, Rachel has an acute understanding of how young women behave online. But as we talk, as two people that undeniably consider their ‘personal brand’ in relation to the internet, I ask her if she really thinks that we’re all spending every waking moment considering our next post or if our own understanding of how young women operate in these spaces is warped due to our jobs. “I think the internet has broken everyone a little, which is sometimes good, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it definitely has.”
She continues, “a lot of people now have their own online brand or following. And some people do that professionally, and some people don’t, and it’s all in their heads, which is okay too.” It was those among us that find the joy in building an online following that Rachel pulled her inspiration from for Alice, drawing on the online behaviour we all find ourselves guilty of but struggle to admit to.
Where she’d once found herself begging her parents to take photos of her riding the lawnmower to post on her Instagram, Rachel’s relationship with the internet has changed. Where she could previously be found over-sharing to her heart’s content, she now, like so many of us, finds social media more complicated. “All of a sudden, it felt sort of vulnerable. The thing is that my brand on Twitter was very real and honest, and immediate. And then I think sometimes people feel as though they have ownership over you, or they know you.” She explains, “which sometimes is cool, and I liked that feeling, but sometimes I don’t want to tell everyone everything.”
When she arrived in New York the day before we spoke, Rachel was standing on the street, crying down the phone. Not an uncommon occurrence. But whereas once upon a time, Rachel would be filming herself sobbing to post online, in this instance, it wasn’t her that shared the information. It was a stranger. “I was embarrassed. And then I was like, this is something I used to say on my own. I think it got to a point where it wasn’t feeling healthy or good anymore.” Her experiences, though more extreme, represent the conflict, so many of us feel when it comes to life online. We grew up seeing the internet as an opportunity for freedom, leading us to over-share and document our entire lives. Now, we feel restricted by social media and resentful of the expectation to be constantly present.
“It’s a rare experience getting to work with your best friends, and it’s very special”.
Following not quite being deux-moi’d but definitely having her privacy invaded, Rachel and Shiva Baby director Emma Seligman found themselves walking past their old school. Fresh from filming their second feature, Bottoms, and prior to Rachel attending her first big film premiere, the moment served as a fitting reminder of how much they’ve achieved so far. “Making Shiva Baby together kind of strengthened us to the point where we were like, okay, not just as friends but as collaborators, what do we need from each other? How do we communicate?”. Rachel says, “It’s a rare experience getting to work with your best friends, and it’s very special.”
After a well-documented “miserable” phase in her early twenties, surrounded by sexist men at stand-up comedy clubs, followed by lockdowns and a pandemic that skewed all of our worlds, Rachel is settling into her new world. She’s collaborating with people she loves and playing characters that she adores. “I love the new pace of my life and where my life is now. I definitely don’t want to go back to being miserable at 23, but sometimes I feel like I blinked, and it happened very quickly.” She’s swapped coasts, enjoys visits to the grocery store and no longer self-describes as ‘messy’. Hot girl selfies have replaced self-aware tweets, as she continues to provide us with performances that encapsulate all the perfect imperfections of being in your twenties.
“Sometimes I have to take moments and be like, hey, be excited. Like, Oh, my God, I get to celebrate with the cast and have this movie come out and, like, this is honestly my first big real premiere. It’s the first milestone - I must stop and appreciate it.”
Writer & Creative Director: Ione Gamble | Photographer & Creative Director: Savanna Ruedy | Talent: Rachel Sennott | Stylist: Tabitha Sanchez | Hair: Gabriella Mancha | Makeup: Selena Ruiz | Set: Drip Dome Productions | Photo Assistant: Anisa | Studio: The Babe Cave | Booked by Maxwell Loscar
Cover Outfit: Bra and Shorts: 404 Studio, Earrings: Pristine, Shoes: Betsey Johnson | Outfit 2, Dress: Vintage Geoffrey Beene | Outfit 3, Dress: Vivienne Westwood, Earrings: 8 Other Reasons | Outfit 3, Earrings: Pristine
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