EJ Marcus on writing jokes for I Love LA

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Just over a year ago, writer/​comedian EJ Marcus decided to go on a depression walk – in his pyjamas, praying he wouldn’t bump into anyone he knew – around his local neighbourhood in Los Angeles. He’s just been rejected from a writing job he desperately wanted and wasn’t feeling particularly hopeful about another one he’d applied for: a staff writer gig for Rachel Sennott’s (at the time) freshly greenlit HBO show, I Love LA.

“Obviously, I walked about three blocks and ran directly into Rachel,” EJ says. ​“We’d met a couple of times before, through comedy stuff and mutual friends, so we chatted for a moment on the sidewalk. Of course, as we said goodbye, I was thinking ​‘Well, I’m wearing pyjamas and my energy is insane, I’m never gonna get that.’ A few days later, Rachel and Emma [Barrie, the show’s executive producer] wanted to meet with me. Kismet!”

That’s how EJ landed a job writing for one of the most talked-about TV shows of 2025. I Love LA is riotous, loud and knowingly full of itself, satirising a city whose inhabitants and stereotypes are ripe for the picking. It’s Girls for the terminally online, a fleshed-out version of that video Sennott posted on Twitter back in 2019, where she jokes about being addicted to drugs and having an eating disorder to Azealia Banks’ 212.

In the show, she plays Maia, a struggling talent agent with a long term boyfriend (Josh Hutcherson) and a couple of close friends (True Whitaker and Jordan Firstman). Slowly but surely, as Maia’s soul is being eroded by an industry she is desperate to be a part of, ex-friend Tallulah (Odessa A’zion) cannonballs back into her life, breaking its mundanity wide open with unresolved beef, loads of partying and dubious schemes. Designed for dissection, it’s already been renewed by HBO for season two. No more depression walks for EJ.

What’s being in a writers’ room actually like?

It’s like being at your friend’s birthday party when you’re 15, it’s only you and your friends at the dinner table and everyone’s hyper from cake so you’re all kind of yelling but laughing so hard. Then mix that with a pretty high stakes group project… And throw in the energy of a seminar-style creative writing class. Also a little bit of group therapy. Is that clear? A lot of TV writers like to say ​“the job is talking”, which is really true. Essentially, you’re sitting at a big table and yapping for hours about these characters you all made up. It’s so fun.

What’s the joke you are proudest to have written in I Love LA?

I’m pretty proud of Tallulah’s intrusive texts to Maia in episode two. Basically, Maia gets a series of texts from her while she’s alone in Maia’s apartment.

The first thing she says is ​“OK ya… Cali weed is legit different.” We’ve all been there. Then she goes, ​“Omg when did you get a Hitachi? I thought you were scared of permanent damage from ​‘too much machinery.’” And then finally, ​“You don’t have a cat right? I keep seeing something out of the corner of my eye.”

I’m obsessed with the idea of Tallulah, completely alone in this new apartment, high out of her mind and darting around because she’s lowkey seeing things. And of course, Rachel as Maia plays the reactions to these so understated and funny.

What was it like working with Rachel?

It was awesome. She’s one of the hardest working, most determined people I’ve ever met. Breaking into this industry is really difficult – there’s no perfect way to do it, and a lot of people are trying to adapt. I chose a path that really utilised social media, which is a double edged sword: a lot of people recognise me, but they only think of me in the context of a video on their phone. It’s really hard to get the industry to take you seriously as a legitimate writer or actor when you’ve been pigeonholed into online content.

All that to say Rachel took me seriously as a writer when not a lot of people did. I had never been in a writer’s room, I was 27, and she hired me to work on a show that she was under an immense amount of pressure to produce. Despite my lack of professional experience, she made me feel incredibly valuable. That’s life changing stuff, and I’m forever grateful for it.

What are five reasons you love LA?

1. The sun!!!

2. The western fence lizards. They do push-ups and it’s hotly debated amongst scientists why exactly they do them. Most people think it’s to attract a mate. I think it’s stimming.

3. The amazing neon signs and architecture.

4. The food. I’m addicted to the tamales from Lupita’s Tamales on San Fernando right now.

5. It’s so cliché but I really love the people here. LA has had an absolutely devastating year, and the current administration is addicted to using us as an example for its fearmongering campaigns of violence. Families are struggling to rebuild after losing everything in the fires, ICE is kidnapping people off the street, and climate change is wreaking havoc on all of us, but especially our homeless neighbours.

Through all of this, LA has so many incredible people working everyday to protect the people of our city. I’m gonna name drop a couple: Feed The Streets LA, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, LA Tenants Union and Ktown For All are just a couple I’ve been lucky enough to connect with.

What about five reasons you hate it?

1. When it rains it absolutely floods.

2. My car got towed a couple months ago – it was my fault, I parked boldly and illegally – and I had to pay $480 CASH and meet a man in a random parking lot at night.

3. When you’re at a party, it’s socially acceptable for someone to ask you who your agent is in the same breath they tell you they have a crush on your friend.

4. The air quality was pretty bad last week. I went on a run and my chest hurt for two days.

5. The rats are too bold but also people aren’t afraid of them enough. I saw a big rat in a coffee shop recently and no one even grabbed a broom. They were cooing at it like it was a kitten. Not ok.

If you had to write a show about any other city, what city would it be? And what would the show be called?

I wrote a workplace comedy pilot last year about a spin studio set in Portland, Oregon, where I grew up. It’s deeply specific but I really believe one day the right person will read it and something will happen with it. It’s called Spinning (I’m open to other names! Call me!).

I Love LA is, largely, about a dysfunctional friendship group in a dysfunctional place. Which character do you most relate to?

I’m a big Tallulah apologist. I’m better now, but there was a period of time where my friends really had to call out my procrastination and lack of organisation and never responding to texts, etc. I’m slightly less chaotic now, but I still feel a deep connection to Tallulah’s mania and her resistance to being told what kind of person she is supposed to be.

What’s it like being a full-time comedian-actor-writer these days?

That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me. But seriously, I think the weird thing about doing those jobs at the stage I’m in – nascent, growing, hopeful – is that there are periods of being slammed and there are periods where it’s all coming from within, writing a million things and hoping someone starts to care. But it’s really fun. It’s quite literally my dream come true.