How to Chart a Career Path in Modern Hollywood, With Rachel Sennott

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Taking a break from the Paramount Warner Brothers merger drama for a much more fun episode about how to chart a career path as an up and coming actor/riders/producer/everything. Rachel Senate is in many ways a combination of old school and new school talent.

First started acting at NYU Film School, but then she developed her own voice via everything

online from podcasts to Twitter to open mic nights around New York City. Most people first took notice of her in Shiva Baby in 2020. Small indie that began as a short film directed by a classmate at NYU. She then did the indie's bodies, bodies, bodies and bottoms, which led to a bunch of failed TV projects, both on traditional outlets like Comedy Central and Web only projects.

Then last year, she launched I Love LA, the HBO Comedy series that Craig and I are both fans of, was renewed for a second season, which is currently leading the writer's room for that follow-up season, but she took a break to join me and Lukashar, Monday guy at the film school at Chapman University in Orange County as part of our mini tour. It's a very fun chat about her ambitions, both inside and outside the traditional industry.

So no call sheet today, it's Rachel, Senate, and how it is still possible to break into Hollywood. From the ringer and puck, I'm not felony and this is the town. I want to start for this audience here with just getting a little bit of your path and the way that you got to where you are today.

So tell us about some of the key moments early in your career, what you decided early on in school that you wanted to do and how you got there, just give us a little bit of your path. So I would say my path started where you guys are now in school, gorgeous school, by the way.

I just was going to the bathroom six times and I went to my you. My acting program didn't really encourage doing stuff with other majors, like they kept the acting students in one group, they kept the film students in this other group and it was like nobody like interact with each other, even the acting schools were broken down

“into different programs and it was kind of like it was very divided and I think what when”

things started clicking for me was when I kind of went out of my program and started making my own connections and finding my friends. I would like leave acting class to go do the film students exercises and I'm sure the film students know you start their like film and apple, like make it crazy or like someone looking at a window smoking a cigarette and like I am in so much footage of doing just like

the like anything or saying like three lines out of context like how are you, how are you? So I did every film students things, I started with the freshman when I was a freshman, gradually I got like people saw that I was down to do like all the film student stuff and I started doing people's thesis films which is what they do in their senior, it's like

a short film and that is how Emma Selman who is the writer director of the baby and

director of bottoms and we wrote bottoms together first found me because Emma had seen me

in other thesis films and was doing their thesis film, ship a baby because it was a short before us a feature and so they reached out for me to audition and that was like the beginning of that relationship I also meant I owe my friend I owe a debris and I met I owe when I did when I auditioned for the comedy groups and neither was gone in but then

and so basically like I think my career path started when I met my future collaborators.

“How did you decide to go to film school in the first place or to acting?”

So it was acting first and then you're like oh maybe I should write my own material maybe I should be a creator that kind of yeah it kind of gradually pulled me in where I went to I was in the Stella Adler acting school which is very serious and it's like you were all black like you your dream is to like be one of the Shakespeare ladies like I can't remember everyone be like you want to be one of the big five and it's like who are the big five and

it's like all the women in Shakespeare like they're like lady M don't say her name like it was so serious I was like I'm not doing well in this environment I can't compete in this environment there was also like this thing as an actor that they really wanted to like smooth you down

“and sort of take away any of the things that make you individual kind of or that's how I felt”

and I I felt I wasn't I wasn't succeeding there I couldn't get into any of the plays I wasn't getting into any of the comedy groups so that's kind of when I was like I need to find my own lane I also remember I they had you crew for the seniors play to do to sort of learn and I was I was crewing for their play and in between rehearsals and stuff I would be like what do you think of what it like what's your plan for graduation what do you think you're gonna do after school

and no one had a plan and it was freaking me out that's the worst question though and say I know I know a freshman being like sad what's your plan did you did you have a plan well I knew I needed a plan already I was already anxious you can tell I'm just though but like I I just knew that I needed to that the school wasn't gonna set me up on my own

“for success I needed to go find my own individual path and that's I think what led me to”

writing and creating and wanting to but it was it was gradual like even before

the show got picked up I think in my mind I was always like if I'm gonna create it'll be like

in a supporting role and then I I credit like my friends a lot with this of helping me find the confidence to take on like directing and show running which is like the most in control of a creative process I've ever been and it's intimidating and it's a lot of pressure because it's kind of like if people don't like it there's no like well I'm just a third right around that you know what I mean it's like they don't like you they hate you you know

I mean it feels it feels vulnerable but I think it kind of led to it gradually and steps and you weren't afraid to put yourself out there even at the time you were doing jokes on Twitter you were doing open mic nights you were doing a lot of stuff back then I'm more scared now now I might don't speak don't say anything be really quiet um yeah I think I just felt like I was kind of throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks and finding myself along the way

because I think it's it's so much pressure to know who you are as an artist already like I think you guys who you are and what you're meant to make is like already inside of you but you just like part of it is your experiences and what you learn as you go and and there's an image I think I think like for a lot of young people there's an image of what they want to make or like what's good

the first thing you make isn't going to be as good as the image in your head but like it's you

have to keep making stuff to get there and so I think I needed to like do really bad stand up do really bad jokes on Twitter make weird short films do they be on same remake of the music video whatever I had to do that to like get closer and closer to making the types of things I want to make do you feel that you've gotten there do you feel like you're making what you're supposed to make I do but I think I I still have to get better at it like I used to have to keep like I

feel like I learned so much on the first season of the show where I'm like oh okay now I know what show running is now I can now I have to do a better job what is something that is

she wants to say ordering people around yeah I would say I think I didn't realize like how much

“the job exists that's like in between parts of the job which is I think just like communicating”

with people and like understanding people like I at some times I was like I feel like I'm running like an insurance company like there's parts of it where all of a sudden you feel like really like serious and businessy and then they're just all these other little things that aren't writing or atmosphere right you come up as a creative person you come up as a writer as a performer

and then all of a sudden you get a show and you're in charge of a P&L you have a five million

dollar an episode budget for a show and you're looking at numbers and math right and I'm like I did all of this to get away from that I can't do that I don't know what it is and I remember reading something that Lena Dunham had said when girls became big was you know because they gave her a person Jenny Connor to work with her on the show to kind of handle that aspect of it did you request that or did you want that I mean it seems like a daunting thing to take on a show without

an experienced person over your shoulder well I got really lucky because they basically like set me up with different people to meet with so I like ended up with this awesome team of people and the Barry my co-show runner it was also her first time show running but she had tons of experience in

“rooms and I think there was something nice about it being both of our first times show running”

so that I didn't feel scared to be like I don't know it didn't feel like we were like they were like this person's bossing you around or telling you you don't know what you're doing like we got to figure it out together and figure out our own rhythm and then I eat a Rogers our producer who she also worked on Barry with Emma like she's worked with HBO a lot like she she's looking at the the P&L the L and P's or whatever I remind me when you were taking the project out

was it competitive if you have a bunch of networks did you always think HBO what was the

I didn't even I didn't take a project out is the thing we want to work with you no this is what happened I've taken broad jacks out there are scripts on the floor like I've been all of COVID like developing a completely different show that never got made and this was when you still lived in New York or had you moved to LA by then this was when it was partially when I was in New York and partially when I was in LA oh and partially when I was in my parents basement

in between that but I pitched like two shows to like a bunch of people that didn't get made and then I had a meeting with Amy Gravet and I lost her man at HBO and it was they had scene bottoms and shiva baby and then read a couple other scripts that I had written and then my agents were like this is it's just a meeting just be don't pitch them anything like they don't want to be pitched stuff like just be yourself obviously I pitched them everything

and I was like I walked in there and I was like imagine this it's a girl she's just a fresh college girl like spitting log lines at them and they were just like they just didn't they just want to get to know me because they like to work with creators from the beginning they like to like work with you from the jump and so they kind of like relaxed me a little and they were like babe stop pitching log lines it you know not really that actually but you know they were just kind

of like what's going on in your life like what's you know where what chapter are you in whatever and so I just started talking about where it was in my life and I was like oh I feel like I'm fucked because I'm about to go through my saturday return and I just started sharing like too much on this zoom and then I whatever we get off the zoom and I was like oh kind of fun meeting whatever then I'm driving in my car and my agent is like calling me and I pick up and she's like

babe congrats you sold the show and I was like I always said what show I was like

what is the show and she was like it's just everything you talked about it's it's all that it's

“all of those things and then I'm like in the car trying to remember by the way it's like do you”

know when you vent and then you black out like you're like what did I say about cool like I was sort of like okay and so what I I didn't have a full show I had the way HBO works like is

and an original pilot script then if they like the pilot scripts they can pick up the pilot then you shoot a pilot then if they like the pilot they can pick up the show so it's like I don't want to say like boom I had a whole show but a boom I had a script that I got to write

so then then the writer's strike was called like right after this first I get an email in my

inbox untitled racial senate friendship show um which is where the joke can't we kept joking about it because we were like what like me seeing that in my email and I was like okay I guess I talked about friendship like I don't know and then and then it was like my deal closed and like a couple days later they called the writer's strike at least the clothes before the straight later I think God I didn't get to talk to Amy and Ali about what the show so I didn't get to meet with

“them for months and months you must have been stewing in your head oh I was I was like journaling”

trying to remember what I said friendship friendship friendship friendship I was so scared and I was like and I was like I also can't I couldn't communicate with them so then anyways right after the strike ended I had like a meeting with them where they were like we want to talk about your idea and I was like my big idea that I said before and then I it was as soon as I I met with them I immediately felt at ease because I think like I realized that they wanted to be

in the development process with me like they wanted to be creative with me I didn't need to have a script or it like I was gonna go through like collaborate with them and they were super involved

and so from there we we developed the show together but like I never like had this one idea

that I took out and but I had other idea like I don't want to make it seem like I didn't ever pitch show but anything I ever like pitched pitch didn't get made and was anything from that initial meeting that did end up in the show was there influencers was it LA based was it

“anything that like that you kind of used the jumping point or was it all original?”

I think like the things that I was talking about like I was talking about like starting my career on the internet that's kind of like the Tolula character comes from like that's a little bit based off of my New York chapter um everyone's like who is this crazy whatever

I'm like the I I related to like that when I was sort of a little bit more messy a little

online um and then like the relationship stuff is like you know fictional but with a wink the like comes from a place of like true thank you to just a yeah exactly the word I was like you for um and like and then I also I think the the thing about Tolula not coming to LA I think I had like when I was in my mid 20s like realizing not all my friends were gonna

“live in the same place as me enjoy it right now you some of you guys are gonna be in Chicago okay”

you don't know someone's to be working to be sure most of you are gonna be in LA so we're gonna be in New York there's all even a fourth place that I can't think of right now but you'll some of you'll be there some of you will be in Atlanta there are only four places yeah related questions like because a lot of the projects you've done prior to this I feel like we're done sort of independently outside of the system yeah did you welcome

having sort of a big company part of the development process and did you during that process go to some of the kind of your collaborators over the years and get their feedback as well or were they too busy doing their own thing for bottoms we had already written the script but then we got to collaborate with a lot of mayo at a Ryan and she gave notes I've been like in the notes process before but not from the jump but like I in a way it was kind of cool because

I didn't know what to expect and Amy and Ally and Casey too like they were just really involved and a quick with the process like it just moved and everything I had heard was like everything I had developed in the past had taken so long but that was like without a network I had like developed it with a producer or something or on my own and then pitched it and so it was really refreshing and I felt really lucky like to have had that experience um you can tell they wanted

to happen you can tell when they don't want to happen when they want to happen I just felt like

around quickly for you then you want to do a draft really quick like when it feels like something's happening you want to make it happen you know and I think we all had that energy which felt really good do you consider yourself super ambitious yes that was quick well I'm just like I I'm not gonna be like no what are your ambitions I my ambitions are I think to me success in the industry jumping jumping on front of your other questions like email to me in advance

um yeah study for this um I think being able to get something made like get anything you want made

“is like true success is being able to be like I want to do a movie it's this this and this”

and everyone's like okay go I want to do a show and you and you can make it happen um and I think

I want after having the experience of the first season I want to keep making the show and then

I think I want to it's made me feel like I want to direct movies and do like what Margarabi has done with lucky chat and create like my own production company and be able to move through the different roles of like actor writer director whatever um and and like have different things going at once one of the tenants of her success is that she's produced for other people as well you want to do that yeah I try I started doing that with my friend Kenarina's

feature bunny lover which is which is coming out shout out bunny lover it's coming out uh YouTube is releasing it this spring um and that was my first getting to like be a it's like indie film like super indie but um that was like my first time getting to like produce a script with a friend who I was like she's so talented and cool and getting to like be a part of making it

“but like getting to do that on a bigger scale and be more involved I think would be really cool”

this episode is brought to you by the Walt Disney Animation Studio Zootopia 2 now nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature the Hollywood Reporter Hales Zootopia 2 knocks it out of the park with its dazzling visuals sophisticated humor and genuine emotion for your consideration for Best Animated Feature I'm curious you've spoken in the past about and you referenced it sort of earlier about like being comfortable almost more comfortable

when you're failing because you learn from it and being scared when things are going well which is I think we said earlier like things seem to be going pretty well right now so what are you scared of don't worry okay thank you that's a really good question so unsettling

“I think the good thing is that I actually found a job that's like always my brain is sort of”

like grabbing at a new thing to be worried about but there's always going to be something to

worry about like what if for shooting in it rains like problem like that could happen and it could ruin the whole day yeah or like what if they hate all the scripts we wrote you know what I mean like there's always like there will be a challenge in the structure of like making something so I feel like in a way my brain which like searches for problems is almost like say she did by the job where I'm like a problem will come a problem will come on its own which

is kind of fun do you think about the show all the time of course because of because of well I mean now when you're writing it like like like alone yeah like when I'm at embedded yeah or when you're not working on it and you're just like in your normal life like does it consume you I feel like I ask because I've asked that a mother show runners and a lot of them

say yes well the thing is that you're never really not working on it in a way because you go

right from the at least for us we wrapped the show we were editing the show while we were shooting the show we finished the edit I started doing press while we were still in the edit then we kept I'm doing press right now and we're writing the next season like it kind of just keeps going but I also feel like when you're working on something like you you know you leave work and then you go to dinner with someone and then something happens I mean crazy happens or someone like

does this behavior whatever that you're sort of working on the story problems in the back of

a fun whatever like I want to meet a guy like that in the show whatever so I think yes

“I'm curious because you talked about this idea of blissful unawareness and you're making”

jokes about the P&L earlier like are you paying attention to what is happening in the broader entertainment business around you while you're doing the show like you're making a show for HBO is the process of getting sold you talked a little bit about the strike later there could be a strike later this year like are these things that you are thinking about or do you just try to so I actually think about it when I listen to you guys talk about it and sometimes I kind of

actually get relaxed because you guys talk about it like look it's obviously it's going to be

no that's my impression of you guys but like that was good yeah since I've joined the industry and since I joined the world as an adult it's been in turmoil and like even more for you guys like I feel like it's like you they put the iPad in your hand and it was just bad like it was just like you were watching group videos or like slime whatever and like just chaos and so it's like I kind of expect that a little what do you think about the world of influencers

I mean obviously it's subject to the show and but do you try to make it feel realistic do you have an opinion about the rise of the influencer culture especially someone who kind of dabble a little bit but is now very much a professional film and TV person I feel like the internet is how I came up and so I'm like grateful to the internet for that like and I feel like it's shown me or like introduced me to like creative people that I or like

comedians writers actually whatever like people that I wouldn't otherwise been able to find like I think it's kind of like a equalizer in that way right now I am like getting a little bit depressed but that's not something that I'll get into I went just there's just so much stuff on there that you can read about oh do you read about yourself no I'm talking about the abstinence I'm like what are you I am I am I am sorry I'm reading I don't care actually any more

that they are saying like that my bulb is weird I don't care I'm literally like this is refreshing

“I am like I am like deep in the abstinence and it's really bad so anyways that's what I mean”

you're searching for people's names I'm just like reading I'm just reading stuff and getting really really disturbed so I mean that's that's the part of the internet that's different than influencers but it's like yeah there are no abstinenceers this is like it sounds like me and the Sony hack right started going through all of the executives anyways yeah it's so it's there's too much to read and it's really scary so I forget what the oh influencers I do you want your show to

to have a commentary on the world of influencers do you want it to say something about them and it's so what okay sorry let me read I need to re-ground myself yeah I think so I think I want I am trying not to judge them like I think that the I'm trying to like have empathy for like people who grew up on the internet and like have seen all of these things like I think like I feel sometimes like a little fried like I feel like my brain is fried from all the things that I've

seen and like just the amount like it's easy to get like nihilistic whatever so basically the characters we wanted each of the characters to be like a different response to like the times and the way the world feels because like like I was saying like ever since I was in college it was like just like chaotic event after chaotic event and like as soon as I graduated it was COVID

and then I moved to LA and then there was a big strike in the industry and like there's never been

solid ground like I think a lot of people talk about like oh it used to be like this it used to be

“like that like I wasn't there for that so I my like approach to my career in life is like I'm like”

like little like hamster on the wheel like running like I can just I'll run this and it'll be okay like next thing next thing next thing but then I have friends who are like fuck this I there's no way to like 60 in the world like we're never going to be able to my house as we're never going to be able to do this like I'm very nihilistic like and I think like to Lula is a

Alani is like able to approach things with a little more loved because she has the resources but

“but like also it's refreshing and you want her perspective and then like Charlie is a little bit older”

like has a little bit more like grain of salt view he's a little chip on his shoulder but like we kind of wanted each character to be like a different response to the times and like growing up on the internet so that like we're not trying to say one thing about it we're trying to say like it's affecting different people on different ways. Do you feel like the internet and the comedy that it's inspiring is materially different from the comedy that you grew up on? In so many ways I mean

I think it's like there's like shared jokes that everyone has in this way where it's like you talk people talk the same and like in a way there's like a community of like someone says something like teenager like coins like a catchphrase or whatever and then the whole world like says it

“I think that you have to be movies that would do that but now it's memes and things you see on TikTok”

but like that's fun like I don't know it's fun like everyone talking about like a new thing and you're like we all got served the same like TikTok algorithm whatever. Right now it's clobicular for me. It's the nuclear. Clobicular for all day long. All day long. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He'd be good

on I love LAX. He would be good Max Max or one of our writers. This is amazing. Max every day is like

this is just like clobicular. I can't pick up a clobicular. Okay you can pick up a couple times if you took out your phone what is the app that's taking what that you're spending the most time on every day. I would say TikTok. I deleted acts to get away from the Jeffrey Epstein files and I I feel like Instagram is just kind of I hate to say it. It's falling flat for me right now. So I'm I mostly would say TikTok right now. Yeah. Thanks you guys. We feel the same. We'll have more and then we'll

open it up to some questions from the audience. So if you have one we'll do a few after this but you're doing a Heidi Flyce movie. Yes, I would attract you to that project. I so I I flyce by the way, the Hollywood madam and the 90s it was a big story. She was running a brothel and she had prostitution clients that implicated a lot of Hollywood people. Exactly. I just wanted to explain it but that's good. I thought I was going to help to say that and I was like

basically Leah Rachel, the director and writer like approached me and travel

section who is her writing partner and husband approached me like back. It was a couple years back. I want to say it was like 2022 and they were like we are like obsessed with Heidi like we think your meant to play her like we want to work with you on this and we worked on the script for and like developing it and then the timing with the show, it didn't work out with the timing of when the film is supposed to shoot but I still got to be like involved in the writing process and

producer on it which is like kind of speaks to like being able to down the line get to like produce other stuff but I just thought she was such an interesting character like she's such her she has she has multiple books but there's like her it's like her whole story is crazy and the way she was so like blatantly open about what she was doing and she kept talking to the press and it was like you can't talk to the press and you're like okay I don't care like I just thought she was a really

interesting character so I was drawn to her. Last question for me and Luke has been how one so

I always been on your show why when are you gonna be on the bear? I'm available but they haven't

“played show um and I think they were they were rapping soon so I'm like I show up as an extra in the”

background in the kitchen. Yeah I could be like I feel like I would be a really good like annoying person ordering food um but uh yeah. And how did you open the moment by the way? Both Io and Molly Gordon. I know. Yeah. And our friend Neetra like I always told me I'm like guys give me on there but and how did you end up in the moment? I know you and Charlie are friends but it's very funny by the way if you haven't seen the moment it's it's really funny um they got a great response when you popped

up at the Sundance premiere everyone started screaming was funny. It was really fun to film they were shooting it in London and I was in the writer's room but I was like in Paris and we were like

they drove me in a van on the channel which is a train a bus that goes underground it goes under

the water or the channel the channel um and uh it was like basically I left the show I like took

a sleeping pill I got in a van with a random man I handed in my passport I was like good night I trust you with my life I guess and then he drove me like across the border and then in the middle of the night they like like we're knocking on the van and they were like ma'am ma'am like whoa

“wake up and I was like oh they were like like we need to you need to like tell us that you're choosing”

to go to crossing the border from a present in England yeah and I was like I'm here to be in a Charlie X-X movie and they were like we don't believe you and I was like I am and then they drove me right to that but I loved the script and like it's the sort of like taking the brat era and doing kind of like what if she had sort of lost control for creative process and I was in the 360 music video so it was kind of like a reference to that and it was really fun all right you got anything else

I have a couple of very boring plastic town questions please do we want to be extraordinary I'll do I'll give you two two quick ones how much do you care if a movie that you make gets a theatrical run gets at the theatrical run I care you care it's just different it's just different sitting in the movie theater and like for bottoms bottoms came out during the strike and so we couldn't promote it I couldn't promote it at all we were really scared and I I'm a control freak obviously and so I was like

I can't do anything I'm just gonna go to the theater like every night and see how many tickets are

sold like I basically was like at the theaters like pacing around looking to see who is there the first

night I went into a screening and I was there and like they started playing the movie and I was like too quiet way too quiet we're not gonna get last so then I go to like the high school students who are

“working at the movie theater and I was like you have to turn up the volume and they're like”

and they were like man we can't do that we're in high school it was the only way I thought control was like going but but when you do theaters you open yourself up to that Monday morning judgment of whether it did well or not and if you do a streaming movie not the same yeah but what if it does well exactly and bottoms I think it was really cool because everyone who saw the movie and loved it made the movie successful and there was no literally shout out shout out people

were dressing up going to the movie and like promoting it on TikTok and like we didn't we didn't get to do any promotion and it made me feel like the movie was fully brought up by the people who loved it and the people that we made it for and so that was like a really special feeling but like

be going to the theater every night for the first like two weekends I was like the energy in here

“feels so special and I think the bottom is box office is directly attributable to you a hundred”

dollars a hundred dollars a couple I was there I was like I was like sitting and like asking people to like what do you think like it's like wait aren't you in the movie it was just but I it was the only way I couldn't measure it and then I would also go on like the fan dingo like ticket app oh my god and I would yeah I can't believe you're not Jewish I I this is kind of like you with the Melania box office I feel like you've been doing that where you're like how many people are actually buying tickets

but I was doing that with bottoms where I would just like scan and see how many people had actually like much there are twelve empty seats at the world what the hell is going on the hell is going on yeah well congratulations on the show and thank you everyone you guys all right that's the show for today I want to thank our gas Rachel Senate Chapman University for hosting us our guy Lucas shop pretty supercorporal bag are to their John Jones and I want to thank you we'll see you next week