“What Are You Crying About?”: Quenlin Blackwell, by Rachel Sennott

Comedian and content creator Quenlin Blackwell tells her future costar Rachel Sennott why a little bit of ego goes a long way.

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TUESDAY 9 AM JAN. 14, 2025 PALM SPRINGS, CA

RACHEL SENNOTT: Are you wearing a fur? It’s gorgeous.

QUENLIN BLACKWELL: Thank you so much. I have an addiction right now.

SENNOTT: I’ve been wearing coats inside recently. It feels so glamorous.

BLACKWELL: You need glamour in your life or you just feel fugly and frumpy all the time. I went to Trashy Lingerie last week and spent a shit ton on baby dolls and robes because walking around in a big T-shirt and shorts is easy and all, but then I feel like an impostor when I walk out the door.

SENNOTT: I know! I’m trying to marry all the different versions of myself because it’s like, you’re either in glam or looking absolutely insane.

BLACKWELL: [Laughs] Yes. The middle ground is a nice robe. The middle ground is a nice hair bonnet. The middle ground is like in Gossip Girl, Blair at home in La Perla. Like, “Hello?” People think lingerie is for sex. It’s not. It’s for you.

SENNOTT: Yes, yes. [Laughs] I am so happy to see you.

BLACKWELL: I am so happy to see you, and that you’re okay, and that there’s not fucking embers falling on your head right now.

SENNOTT: I know.

BLACKWELL: It’s terrifying. Watch Duty. Shout out the app, but they need to update that shit faster.

SENNOTT: I know. I’m like, can they add music or games or something? I’m loving the app, but I feel like it could be more fun, maybe? [Laughs]

BLACKWELL: You’re like, while I’m learning about the apocalypse, I’d like to, I don’t know, play Flappy Bird or something?

SENNOTT: [Laughs] Wait, it’s your birthday next week, right?

BLACKWELL: In four days.

SENNOTT: Okay. So you’re a Capricorn.

BLACKWELL: I’m a Capricorn. What are you?

SENNOTT: Virgo.

BLACKWELL: Period. We have synergy.

SENNOTT: I have two sisters who are Capricorns. Sometimes they tell the truth in a way that hurts, but I always appreciate it.

BLACKWELL: I’m always told, “It’s the delivery, Quenlin.”

SENNOTT: I know. But when you know the truth, it just has to come out sometimes. 

BLACKWELL: Would you rather a lie, or the fucked-up delivery?

SENNOTT: Yeah. It’s so much worse when years later, people are like, “We all hated him.” And you’re like, “Did anyone think to say it?” But then, of course, people did: the Capricorns.

BLACKWELL: Exactly. The thing with me being a Capricorn and dating people that aren’t good for me is, people don’t tell me. I’m so good at a rebuttal that they’re just like, “I didn’t want to catch the smoke.” I’m like, “Oh, no. I need to be a little bit softer.”

SENNOTT: Okay. So, you fully identify as a Capricorn.

BLACKWELL: I completely identify as a Capricorn. My birthday is in four days, and I was going to go to Brazil, but now I can’t, because the person I was going to go with’s passport got burnt up in the fire. It doesn’t even sound real. But I’m not even mad, because to not work and just sit in bed and rot for a bit is all the vacation I need. 

SENNOTT: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Leisure time makes me itch. That’s a really Capricorn-esque trait.

SENNOTT: You’re such a planner. Also, one of the things I want to ask you is, when you’ve been creating for so long, you have to go through different eras, almost like a musician would. 

BLACKWELL: Yes.

SENNOTT: But when you do that, do you feel a change in yourself first, and then you move it outside? Or are you like, “I’ve got to change everything,” and then you feel it? 

BLACKWELL: Your questions are eating. For me, it’s a change that I feel inward. The reason why I got on all the Quenaissance shit and started to purposefully make content—I hate the word content, because it takes out all of the work that I put into stuff—

SENNOTT: Your art.

BLACKWELL: Yeah. My art, fuck it. [Laughs] It’s like, I came to L.A., I met all these kids who were doing good on the internet, and then they all started to buy houses. And I was still living in a co-op apartment. For a Capricorn, we see the finer things and that’s the new goal. I was like, “I don’t think I’m not funny, it’s just, like, I’m not intentional right now, because the internet was never supposed to be a job.” I just started having a team literally three months ago. Before that, it was all me. No PR, no manager, no agent.

SENNOTT: Yeah. And then you realized how much you were doing. You’re like, “This is 11 jobs.” It’s insane.

BLACKWELL: [Laughs] Yes, because I remember you also started on Twitter, and you were getting your shit done by yourself.

SENNOTT: Yes. It’s like a startup, where you’re like, “I’m in the lab cooking.” And then when someone reaches out, you’re like, “Oh my god, there’s an agency of people who do this.” But I think that mindset is what makes you continue to succeed and grow, because of course your team helps you and brings you opportunities, but at the end of the day, you’re the business and you’re also the creative. 

BLACKWELL: I hear you. Because I was in the lab cooking all by myself for so many years, I still feel so much value in myself. My career wasn’t handed to me. I know wherever I end up—on your show [Sennott’s forthcoming HBO series], on the YouTube trending page, on magazine covers, I’m like, “I picked myself up from the fucking dirt to be in these positions.” I put my best foot forward, and I don’t ever have impostor syndrome because of that.

SENNOTT: Yeah.

BLACKWELL: Now, the only impostor syndrome I get is what we were talking about earlier, when the look doesn’t always have equilibrium with the vibe. 

SENNOTT: Oh my god. The number of times I’m looking at an image of myself in bed, and being like, “Who is that person?” The dysmorphia is crazy.

BLACKWELL: It’s insane. My natural hair, I have it out right now, because if you’re serving while the world’s on fire, that’s crazy.

SENNOTT: [Laughs] To serve right now is—

BLACKWELL: Insensitive, yeah. I took my hair out in allegiance. There is no space for a bust-down right now. Also, I had to fucking evacuate. I don’t even have any of my hair tools and I literally have to post a birthday shoot, because that’s what I do every year. I’m getting the pictures back and I’m like, “Who is that?” When you do photo shoots, do you kind of disassociate through it?

SENNOTT: It depends on the thing. Sometimes you become a weird doll.

BLACKWELL: [Laughs]

SENNOTT: Especially when everyone’s like, “Serve! Serve!” All of a sudden you’re watching yourself from the ceiling and you’re like, “Good job, honey.”

BLACKWELL: [Laughs] Yeah. So, looking at the pictures of myself and feeling how I do right now is actually insane. There’s this picture of Marilyn Monroe in the Airbnb I’m staying in—I evacuated to Palm Springs, because I have fucking asthma and I was starting to cough.

SENNOTT: I have asthma, too.

BLACKWELL: Yeah, go get your inhaler because they’re saying that the air quality is fine, but I think that’s a lie. 

SENNOTT: I am getting so much different information, so I’m just sort of rocking it inside. 

BLACKWELL: Right. I’m sorry for the dogs that need to walk right now. Anyway, I’m literally looking at a picture of Marilyn Monroe in this Airbnb, and I’m like, “She had a vision, and she made it happen.”

SENNOTT: She did.

BLACKWELL: You had a vision and you made it happen. I had a vision and I made it happen. The manifestation shit is so real.

SENNOTT: What is your religion or spirituality, by the way?

BLACKWELL: I’ve been through the wringer when it comes to spirituality. I’ve joined a couple cults in my time. [Laughs] But I’ll always be an indoctrinated Christian, just because I was raised in Texas in a Black family that’s from the darkest of slavery, so of course god was implemented in my entire family structure. But for me—I really do be talking to myself and to God. 

SENNOTT: Yes, yes.

BLACKWELL: I don’t think god is evil and malevolent. I don’t really believe in hell. I think Earth is hell. This is the place for the lesson. I genuinely feel like in my past life I was some sort of princess or queen, and I tried to overthrow some type of order, and they sent me here to live a human life.

SENNOTT: Wait, have you ever done past life regression?

BLACKWELL: No. I want to so bad.

SENNOTT: You need to.

BLACKWELL: Have you done it?

SENNOTT: I did. And someone told me—this is really not a good thing. She was like, “You were either Marie Antoinette or one of her friends.” I was like, “That cannot be right.”

BLACKWELL: [Laughs] The girls that do past life regressions are complete tweakers. Like, what do you mean I’m Marie Antoinette out of all the fucking people that existed?

SENNOTT: But what’s fun about stuff like that is it’s kind of like a sounding board, like a tarot reading or whatever. It gives me an opportunity to work out how I actually feel. 

BLACKWELL: I agree. I used to get readings done and it gave me some sort of direction. They were like, “You’re in the passenger seat of your life. If you get behind the wheel, everything that you want is possible.” Now, were they right, or did I just need to get up off my ass? We’ll never know.

SENNOTT: But hey, you did it.

BLACKWELL: So many of my friends, when they’re going through a difficult time, what I’d be thinking in my head is, “You need a god.” Just have some type of guiding force outside of your neuroses.

SENNOTT: Do you think you have strong intuition?

BLACKWELL: Yes.

SENNOTT: Because so many times, I need to make a decision and I circle around it. I ask everyone that I know what to do, and then a year later, I’m like, “I knew what to do in the beginning.”

BLACKWELL: I feel like that’s another lesson that god, the universe, whatever the fuck you want to call it, is teaching me. It’s like, “I gave you intuition for a reason.” And I feel like the universe gets annoyed when we don’t follow our voice in our heart. It’s like, “Okay, bitch, since you want to go ask everyone, I’m going to give you everyone’s reality instead of your own, since you don’t trust what I’ve built for you.”

SENNOTT: Yes. I want to ask you about ages, because I felt this a lot at 23 and I’m feeling this again now in my Saturn return, where the universe slaps you in the face with the same lesson over, and over, and over. I’m like, “Okay, got it.” And then I do it again. But do you have an age that has been the most formative for you? 

BLACKWELL: So, the age that I feel made me who I am right now was 22. Because I went so hard at 21 that at 22, I shaved my head, I slept on the floor, I didn’t look in mirrors. I didn’t hug people. I stopped drinking. I stopped smoking. I stopped nicotine. I had no caffeine for an entire year. I’m a really extreme person. So, I went into this monkhood. And the stillness of my life made me figure out who I was.

SENNOTT: Oh my god. That’s powerful.

BLACKWELL: Doing that made me realize who I was again, without all of that outside input. I felt like a kid. I miss that, because when you were a kid, you knew who you fuck with, who you didn’t fuck with.

SENNOTT: You had such immediate access to your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, and your imagination. I actually feel like you are so free as a creator. But I think it’s so easy to get inhibited, especially with the constant feedback on the internet. Like, if we think it’s hard enough asking three of our friends about a decision, what do you do when millions of people are like, “I think this. I think that—”

BLACKWELL: One of my blessings is knowing exactly who I am, and exactly what I think is funny, and exactly how I want to tell a joke. I think it’s because I have some type of ego when it comes to myself as a creative. I’ve had this ego my entire life. I’ve had a YouTube channel since I was 8. I would come home every day after school and talk to my webcam the same way I come home and talk to my phone now. I think because I’ve been on the internet since before there were influencers, I have a really deep understanding of it. I don’t give a fuck what any comment says, because I have such great friends I can bounce ideas off of. 

SENNOTT: Yes. And some of the comments, I’m like, “I can’t even be mad, because I think you’re 12.”

BLACKWELL: Literally.

SENNOTT: When I was 12, I was probably writing Twilight fanfic, and somewhere someone was reading it being like, “This is really disturbing.”

BLACKWELL: [Laughs] Also, I need to see proof of concept. If you’re giving me an opinion on what you think my movie should be about, and you haven’t had a successful movie, then why the fuck am I listening to you?

SENNOTT: Yes. I felt this when I was going from TikTok to standup or acting or whatever. There was a transition, but at the same time there was a lot of crossover, where you’re like, “Oh, I’ve been doing this.” Do you feel a difference between when you’re filming a video versus when you’re acting in a different character? 

BLACKWELL: I genuinely feel like the only difference between acting and filming is memorizing lines. Because when I’m recording a video of myself, I’m being a character. And I’m coming from a place like, “I experienced this thing five years ago, but I’m going to put myself right exactly where I was five years ago, and speak from there.” Which I feel like is what acting is.

SENNOTT: Yes.

BLACKWELL: The only thing that makes it different for me is having to memorize lines and also not being in charge. Because there’s a fucking director. There’s writers

SENNOTT: That means that you should probably direct.

BLACKWELL: I would love, love, love to direct. I’m already directing so many things for my YouTube channel, but I also have a deep fear of mediocrity. And so, if I wanted to direct how you’re directing, I would have to throw myself completely into it. I’ve been in acting lessons for the past three years, because I was so scared of being an influencer who gets a Hollywood break and makes a fool of the entire production. [Laughs]

SENNOTT: That’s absolutely not you.

BLACKWELL: Thank you. When you were like, “You got the role,” [Blackwell appears on Sennot’s upcoming HBO series] I was like—

SENNOTT: You’re so talented and funny. And for me, acting is exactly what you said. It’s like, even if a character is different from me, the character is still coming through me. I think it’s so cool that you took classes. But at the same time, when I went to acting school, I felt like they were trying to smooth us all out and make us the same.

BLACKWELL: Yes, yes. And all the shit that I learned in acting class, I did not use once.

SENNOTT: No. Because the reason it’s fun to see you play a role is because you’re playing it. It’s about taking the character and channeling it through you. 

BLACKWELL: Yeah. The only part of those classes I really used was the memorization techniques.

SENNOTT: Memorizing shit is crazy. I could be working on something for a month and be like, “I can’t memorize this.” And then sometimes they give you the sides and you’re like, “Da da da da. Da da da da.” The spirit comes or it doesn’t.

BLACKWELL: I genuinely feel like possession is real. I think a lot of actors open themselves to be possessed by whatever spirit of the character they need to be in. Now, I don’t think bitches are getting possessed on comedy sets. But I think if you need to pull out a cry or a wail, you’re channeling something. Because you’re not sad about shit right now, so what are you crying about?

SENNOTT: You draw it from somewhere, or someone else. Because sometimes you’re like, “Was that in me?” Okay.

BLACKWELL: Right, right.

SENNOTT: I’m going to say it. We contain multitudes. Okay. I want to ask a few more questions. If you were to mash up two movie genres together to make your dream movie. What would it be?

BLACKWELL: It would be a psychological thriller/comedy. Bodies Bodies Bodies tea. [Laughs]

SENNOTT: Okay, love that. Do you feel like the industry gets you?

BLACKWELL: This is some egoed-out shit, but yeah, I think the industry gets me, because I’m easy to digest.

SENNOTT: And you know who you are.

BLACKWELL: Yes. 

SENNOTT: Okay. Since I feel like we’re feeling lots of love for L.A. right now, what’s your ideal L.A. day?

BLACKWELL: Waking up. Going to a Pilates class or a hot yoga class and sweating. Taking my vitamins that I got from the Vitamin Shoppe or Erewhon. Maybe go by the beach. Drown myself in the sand. Then go home, fuck around a little bit, aka work. Then—

SENNOTT: You’re such a Capricorn, you’re like, “Ideal dream day. Work out, vitamins, and work.”

BLACKWELL: Yeah. If I don’t work during the day, I feel sick. But my work is making jokes, so I talk to my friends, come up with some ideas. Maybe at nighttime, drink a glass of red wine. I only drink wine. Any other liquor makes me into a crazy person. And then hang out with my cats. I recently got a house and it’s being fucking evacuated right now, which, I’ll be literally so depressed if anything happens. Anyways. Figuring out what furnishings I like, and where I want to put them. And then talking to my family and going to sleep. That’s my ideal day in L.A.

SENNOTT: Okay. Two more. What is the most Hollywood thing about you?

BLACKWELL: Let me think. I like all of my friends in my life to be like characters.

SENNOTT: Love.

BLACKWELL: I like interesting people around me. And even boring people can be interesting.

SENNOTT: Where you’re like, “How are you this boring?”

BLACKWELL: Yes. I’m like, “This is interesting. I’ve never seen a character of this sort.”

SENNOTT: Okay. And then that leads to my last type of question, which is, what type of friend are you? 

BLACKWELL: I’m the whatever-you-need type of friend. If you just want silence and you just want to chill, if you want to get on our phones next to each other, I’m that type of friend. If you need some life advice, I’m that type of friend. If you want to go do an activity, I’m that type of friend. But if you’re delusional and you don’t know what you’re needing, and you’re trying to run away from something? I’m not that friend that’s going to, like—

SENNOTT: Let you be delusional. Exactly. I think you’re grounding.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Rachel. I think you’re grounding, too.

SENNOTT: Grounding, honest, and intuitive.

BLACKWELL: Thank you. Wait, that’s you, too, because—what do they say? We’re the universe experiencing itself through human consciousness.

SENNOTT: We’ve got some quotes.

BLACKWELL: There’s something in there for them to chew on. Bro, stay safe, and let me know if you need anything.

SENNOTT: I love you. I’m so happy to see you and talk to you.

BLACKWELL: I love you, too. Have a good rest of your day.

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Hair: Malcolm Marquez using Got2B at Opus Beauty.

Makeup: Ciara Maccar using Tom Ford Beauty at Exclusive Artists.

Nails: Thuy Nguyen using Aprés and CND at A-Frame Agency.

Photography Assistant: Amalia Irons.

Fashion Assistant: Emily Cancelosi.

Production Management: Cecilia Alvarez Blackwell