How Rachel Sennott turned the summer's most 'annoying' character into a breakout role

After completing the short film version of “Shiva Baby” in 2018, Rachel Sennott went for a walk around the neighborhood where she did the project with writer, director and friend Emma Seligman.

“We were so inspired, and we were like, ‘We're going to do all of this,’” Sennott recalls — including a feature-length adaptation of the short.

Reality soon hit as they were “slogging through the mud” for two years getting the feature off the ground, giving Sennott a crash course in indie filmmaking.

“It taught me that sometimes it's a very slow-burning thing,” she says. “And you really have to push your baby forward, because no one else is going to do it.”

That lesson led Sennott to her standout role in A24’s “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” in which she stars alongside Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha'la Herrold, Pete Davidson and Chase Sui Wonders as part of a group of friends whose night of partying in a mansion during a hurricane takes a turn for the worse when someone ends up dead.

Sennott's character, Alice, is a beacon of energy chasing the latest trends and TikTok challenges, often pulling out her phone to wrangle others into a dance. Sennott’s performance leans into both the attractive and morally suspect aspects of the Gen Z clout-chaser, including the hypocrisy of acknowledging social issues without implementing changes or even acknowledging one’s privilege in everyday life — at one point crying that she’s an "ally." Her attention to the intricacies of a young adult earnestly clinging to love in friendships and romantic relationships underscores the satirical slasher film's comic flair. Combined with her timing and delivery of Alice's often unexpected one-liners, the actor stands out in an already standout cast.

Sennott's success in the role comes from a deep well of experience. Growing up around local theater, she performed from a young age, both formally — she did “Annie” three times — and informally — including short plays and “weird little music videos” she produced with her siblings. Though she didn't have a terribly realistic sense of life in showbiz ("I was like, ‘You wake up, you put on a dress, you go on the red carpet, day is done,’" she says), the creative impulse led her to New York University to study acting. Unfortunately, the school's "classical, dramatic" bent was limiting to Sennott: “I felt like it was a kind of program where comedy didn't necessarily have a place.”

Sennott decided to pave her own path instead.

“I did basically every single student film project,” she says. “If they needed someone to drink a glass of water, I was there. And I would skip acting class to do all the film students’ stuff because I wanted to be on camera.”

She also found herself involved in stand-up through a "meet cute" with a classmate worthy of a modern comedy.

“He came up to me in the dining hall and was like, ‘You’re kind of cute,’” Sennott recalls. “He basically insulted me and then told me he does open mics. So obviously, I was obsessed.”

She started attending with him and “got hooked,” particularly after her first time onstage.

“You tell everyone, 'It's my first time doing stand-up,' so everyone gives you a little leeway,” she says. “They laugh, and it's like a drug. And then you do it again, and you're bad. So then you have to keep going until you get back to how it felt the first time.”

Sennott later joined fellow stand-up Ayo Edebiri (“The Bear”) in Comedy Central’s short-lived web series “Ayo and Rachel Are Single,” which followed the two’s dating lives, and, like many wits, has developed her following on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic — all experiences that paid dividends with “Bodies Bodies Bodies.”

Sennott first read the script for the film, written by Sarah DeLappe from a story by Kristen Roupenian, during pandemic closures and immediately knew she had to have the role. She says she “begged for an audition” and committed to the callback by rehearsing to the point that she concerned her neighbors, who saw her through the window with a knife in her hand.

“When you want something that bad, you don’t want to mess up,” she says. “You want to have control over everything you can.”

When Sennott received word she had landed the part, after the Los Angeles premiere of “Shiva Baby,” she initially thought the constant calls from her manager were a sign she'd done something wrong. “Whenever anyone calls me on the phone, I’m like, 'I’m in trouble.'"

This only created new anxieties, though, as she planned to arrive on set as prepared as she had for her audition. (She came to the table read "guns blaring," she says. "'I'm off book.'") Her nerves settled when she realized she could rely on her theatrical instincts in what "felt like a play," replete with unities of setting (a mansion and grounds) and time (one night). Sennott remembers Stenberg pointing to the classical tropes in a story laden with Gen Z specificity: “At the end of the day, everything is like Chekhov, everything is like Greek theater,” she says. “It all goes back to that.”

The nature of the film required cast members to rehearse heavily and forge a strong familiarity with the dialogue, which has the snappy pacing of a comedy of manners. (The pace also meant that the props team had to swap out Alice's neon bracelets and necklaces at least five times a day — even while the camera was rolling on another actor — to keep their glow alive.) But though Sennott’s character is the comic relief, she says there’s more to Alice than that.

“People are like, ‘Oh, she's annoying,’” Sennott says, comparing Alice to "Pride and Prejudice's" Lydia Bennet, who "just wants to flirt." “I love her, and I think she's just trying her best. There’s something so fun to play about a character where at the end of the day, all she wants is for everyone to have a good time.”

It was director Halina Reijn, steering Sennott away from reading her lines like a knowing joke, who helped her connect with the devilish tone.

“We ran the scene where I’m in the kitchen defending Greg [played by Lee Pace] and she was like, ‘Everything you say is your last chance to defend his life, to defend his honor,’” Sennott says. “That completely shifted everything for me.” It inspired the reading of perhaps her funniest line, "He's a Libra moon" — an utterly earnest defense of a man accused of murder.

For Sennott, the breakout role in "Bodies Bodies Bodies" is just the start of a raft of upcoming projects, including “Bottoms,” which she co-wrote with Seligman and which she is set to star in alongside Edebiri, and HBO’s “The Idol,” from "Euphoria's" Sam Levinson, starring the Weeknd, Lily-Rose Depp and Troye Sivan.

She also hopes to add a directing credit to her résumé one day. Being part of the entire journey of a movie is what attracted her to projects like "Shiva Baby." Though she may have a stronger grasp on the work that goes into a film than she did when she was younger, she hasn't lost touch with the wonder of those red carpet daydreams.

“I think making a movie is a magical, scary thing," she says, "Where everyone goes in and you write one movie, you shoot another movie, you edit another movie, and you hope that the final thing is good.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.