The HERO Winter Annual 2025: Josh in conversation with Rachel Sennott
Josh Hutcherson: Hey, Rach! Look where I am, [holds up laptop] I’m in one of these weird pods at the airport. [laughs]
Rachel Sennott: Hey! I haven’t been able to take a normal flight recently. Every flight has had a minimum of two hours’ delay.
JH: There’s a hurricane in New York right now and I was supposed to be on a flight this morning. I woke up at 6:30 am, it said it was delayed an hour, so I called and they put me on an earlier flight. Got to the airport extra early, then that flight was delayed two hours, which means I’d miss my connection to Barcelona. So now I’m avoiding New York and they’ve rebooked me on a flight from LA to Seattle, then Seattle to Amsterdam, and Amsterdam to Barcelona. It’s psychotic.
RS: I’m trying to think of a map, I’m like, “Is Amsterdam on the way?!” [both laugh] I feel like a fun place to start would be our first meeting – we met on Zoom.
JH: I’m getting flashbacks.
RS: This is the same thing. It felt hectic and you were travelling.
JH: You caught me in a crazy moment because I had just rented an apartment in New York for a year, which is ironic considering I Love LA is based on someone who’s from New York who moves to LA. As I landed, my team called me and they were like, “Hey, how do you feel about getting on a plane and maybe going to LA, like, now?” I was like, “Not good, why? What’s happening?” They told me it was the show with you because you guys were doing the pilot, and I was someone who could potentially be right for the show. I have been a fan of yours for a long time and was super excited at the prospect of working with you, so we ended up having this Zoom chat about the character, about the script, which then led to us doing a chemistry read via Zoom, which is always so fucking weird. I’ve done a couple, and chemistry with a screen is just a weird thing. It was very hectic, but as soon as we finished the first meeting, I was like, holy shit, we’re so on the same page, and want to make the same kind of thing. It made a lot of sense. The day after the chemistry read, they were like, “Rachel wants you to do it.” I was like, “Fuck! Amazing! I’ve got to change my entire life plan.” [both laugh] The apartment we rented in New York wasn’t going to work for my dogs and it was a whole thing, so this show became the saving grace to bail me out of a fucked situation. Instead of finding a new apartment in New York, I had to come back and shoot this amazing show with you and everyone else. It worked out in a way that is just mindblowing to me.
RS: It was crazy because I remember you talking, being like, “This is my new apartment,” and I was like, “OK… I hope you’re down to come back.” Something that I love about you is that you’re so game and open to stuff. Just that first conversation about the script, you brought so many of your own ideas. We chatted, then we were going to read and I was like, “Are you down to read?” You pulled out your phone and were like, “I guess, let me book a flight.” [both laugh] I was like, “We can do Zoom!”
JH: I didn’t know! What they had told me was, “Rachel and you are going to do a Zoom together and then you might be coming to LA to do a chemistry read.” That makes sense to me, so when you said, “I guess we’re going to read some scenes, maybe tomorrow,” I was like, “OK yeah, it’ll be later in the day because I have to fly in from…” you were immediately like, “No, Josh! Zoom!”
RS: Being an actor is like that, they’re like, “We need you in Budapest in 45 minutes, I’m so sorry.”
JH: I’ve been doing this since I was fucking nine years old, and for some reason, they still can’t figure out how to plan something with some reasonable amount of foresight. [both laugh] I can’t tell you how many times, it literally just happened to me, they’re like, “There’s this amazing new project, here’s ten pages of sides, you need to memorise them and put yourself on tape within the next two hours. It shoots in March.” And I’m like…[puts head in hands] “Nothing that you’re saying makes any sense right now, you just found out about this, and they’re shooting at the beginning of next year, but we need the tape tomorrow?” It happens all the time.
RS: Can you ride a pogo stick? We just need a video of that, it’s not in the film but we just need to know if you can. [both laugh]
JH: My sense of being game and down is from a lifetime of being trained that that is just the way it works. For any of it to function, for me to have a career, for me to do the projects I want to do, you just have to live in a constant flexible state, whether that’s travelling, life plans, or vacations. I was supposed to be on vacation with my girlfriend last week, and then they were like, “You have a photoshoot with the whole cast for the show in LA,” so I went to LA for four days. It used to stress me the fuck out for north of a decade.
RS: I’m still there.
JH: You’ll get there, Rach. It’s still stressful for sure, but it’s something you have to learn.
Source: HERO
