Some TV viewers have a habit of conflating TV characters with the actors who play them. This was prominent, for example, during Girls‘ run on HBO and in the years after. Rachel Sennott is the creator, star, executive producer, and director of the new HBO comedy I Love LA, which debuted on November 2, and her cast features actors who were already famous faces on the internet playing people who are internet famous. Before the show debuted, we asked Sennott for her thoughts on this parasocial phenomenon of people thinking actors are their characters and how she feels if that were to happen with the I Love LA cast. Her costars Odessa A’zion, Jordan Firstman, and True Whitaker weighed in as well.
Sennott’s Twitter, along with her Bottoms costar Ayo Edebiri‘s (who made a cameo in I Love LA Episode 2), were hugely popular before they both shut down their accounts. Sennott also went viral with the “Fatima” memes and her 2019 video about Los Angeles culture (which was filmed before she moved to L.A. and made a home there, spawning this series).
A’zion, who plays Tallulah in the series, boasts 1.3 million followers on Instagram and is the daughter of Emmy winner Pamela Adlon. Firstman (Charlie) got famous on socials, and Whitaker (Alani) is the daughter of Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker. That’s all to say that they’re familiar with social media fame. And with the show depicting internet culture and people who build careers off of it, like some of I Love LA‘s stars have, the lines between their characters and themselves may get blurred.
“I think that any responses to the characters, I feel like that part of reactions are a sign that people are engaging with something. I think that’s always cool,” Sennott says, adding that she “put pieces of myself in all the characters” but “nothing is a clear one-to-one.”
Sennott plays Maia, an up-and-coming talent manager who hopes to create a big life for herself through her friendship and partnership with her complicated best friend, influencer Tallulah (A’zion). A’zion stresses, “I’m not an influencer, and I don’t really know how that stuff works. But from knowing my friends who do do that and are influencers, it’s definitely a real job.”
The Marty Supreme star says that jobs in social media aren’t just for interns, despite what the internet teases.
“It’s definitely time-consuming. And for the people that do it and do it [well], it’s a lot of work,” she says. “You’re on all the time. You have to do it all the time.”
Whitaker’s Alani is a little different, as the character was rewritten to bake more of Whitaker’s personality and nepo baby lived experiences.
Kenny Laubbacher / HBO
“When they’re writing the show, we had an opportunity to go into the writer’s room and sit with them and just tell them a little bit about ourselves,” Whitaker tells us. “I could tell that the writers obviously were pulling from some parts of our lives and changing it and heightening the story.”
“It was fun to get to see the way that they would pull these ideas,” Whitaker continues. “Even in Episode 2, when [Alani’s] in the office going off, I realized it was extremely reminiscent to when I went into the writer’s room and was like, ‘What do you want to know about me?’ And then I just went off like it was damn therapy. And so it was funny to see that reflected back. It was hilarious.”
When it comes to fans watching and possibly conflating the characters with the actors, Firstman advises, “Just watch it like a TV show. Try not to get it too into your minds what’s going on with us off-screen and see them as characters.”
“Just appreciate it and laugh with it, and if it makes you think or makes you feel a certain type of way, go into that with yourself,” he goes on. “Have those conversations by yourself. You don’t need to share them with everyone or the world.”
There are some elements of Firstman’s personal life that are incorporated into Charlie’s plot.
“I’m not going to reveal which ones, but the hair’s looking good,” he jokes. “Whatever, let ’em talk!”
I Love LA, Sundays, 10:30/9:30c, HBO
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