Rachel Sennott on Balancing Raunchy Comedy in ‘Bottoms’ and Heartbreaking Humor in ‘I Used to Be Funny’

To paraphrase dear Hannah Horvath from Girls, Rachel Sennott may not be the voice of her generation, but she certainly is a voice of a generation.

And oh, what a voice. Smart, vulnerable, slightly neurotic, frequently ironic, always compelling. Its a delicious style of comedy honed on Twitter, Instagram and other platforms, where the 27-year-old Sennott first developed a following with her wry observations on dating and personal finance. Then crystalized in starring roles in Shiva Baby (a masterclass in awkward humor) and the horror film Bodies Bodies Bodies (surprisingly amusing despite the gore). But with the one-two punch of Bottoms and I Used to Be Funny, both of which premiered at this years SXSW, Sennott has further demonstrated how rich and malleable her comic persona can be.

Im guided by my gut, Sennott says of her process for choosing projects. When Im reading something and Im saying the words out loud to myself, thats the sign Im excited. Im already thinking about how Im going to say a line or thinking Oh, I can wear, like, a weird shoe if I play this role.

In Bottoms, Sennott goes back to high school for a queer take on the classic sex comedy. She co-stars with The Bear breakout Ayo Edebiri as lesbian best friends who launch an all-female fight club. Sennott,who co-wrote the screenplay with her Shiva Baby collaborator Emma Seligman, said it was a chance to put a female spin on raunchy movies like American Pie and Superbad.

It changes the way the characters fulfill their goal, Sennott says of having women take the helm. The characters in the movie use feminism to their advantage. But we didnt just want to copy another movie thats already great and just put girls in it. We wanted to update it and make it personal to ourselves.

That meant encouraging improvisation on set, and tapping back into the intense feelings of adolescence that make high school such a minefield.

When youre in high school and youre living in that world, its just kind of a microcosm, says Sennott. I remember how heightened everything was. It was just, like, this is all that matters. Everything thats important is the 3,000 people who live in this town. Thats it, and no one else exists. Thats how high the stakes feel.

Bottoms is campy fun. In contrast, I Used to Be Funny is a much darker story, one that uses humor as shield against inner turmoil. Here, Sennott is Sam, an aspiring stand-up comedian struggling with PTSD from a sexual assault she experienced. When the teenager she used to nanny disappears, Sam struggles to decide whether or not to get involved in the search. Its a tightrope of a performance, perhaps the most nuanced that Sennott has ever given, and one on which this character study rises and falls.

I personally connected to the material, says Sennott. Most women have had some sort of negative sexual experience. Ive known so many women and friends who have experienced stuff like this.

And Sennott appreciated how I Used to be Funnys writer and director Ally Pankiw told Sams story.

She wrote about trauma in a very real way that we dont always get to see in movies, she says. It can be very slow burning and long lasting. Its a thing that has ups and downs.

In the movie, Sams jokes have an edge to them, but they are still very funny. But its a humor that emerges out of a deep sense of pain. Sennott says that tracks, too.

I felt like I was always at my best in standup when I was really depressed, she says. Even if I said them later on when I was feeling better, Id think somethings missing. What was so exciting about getting to play Sam was digging into that place where you have to use humor and laugh at something because youre in such pain. It eases the harshness to joke about it. Its like, I went through hell, but now I have two really fucked up jokes that I love telling. So theres a silver lining to this whole miserable experience.