As Amy Poehler expands her directorial repertoire with Moxie, she once more puts women and friendships at the forefront like she did in 2019's Wine Country. This time around, the focus is on teenager Vivian (Hadley Robinson, Utopia) and the anonymous Riot Grrrl-esque magazine she starts at her school.

Thanks to the sexism and bullying perpetrated by students like popular jock Mitchell (Patrick Schwarzenegger, Echo Boomers) and overlooked by the administration, Vivian incites a school-wide rebellion with the power of her words. The only problem is that her lifelong best friend Claudia (Lauren Tsai, Legion) doesn't seem to be onboard - but there may be a good reason for it.

Related: Moxie Trailer: Amy Poehler Helps Start a High School Revolution

The director and young actresses spoke to Screen Rant about the process of adapting Jennifer Mathieu's novel, the importance of the friendship at the heart of the story, and the film's approach to intersectional feminism.

Moxie. Lauren Tsai as Claudia, Hadley Robinson as Vivian in Moxie. Cr Colleen Hayes/NETFLIX © 2020

Amy, I know that you got to collaborate with the author and screenwriters when preparing Moxie. What was that collaboration process like?

Amy Poehler: Thank you for asking. Tamara Chestna and Dylan Meyer are the writers on this script and Jennifer Mathieu is the writer of the book. They're all really strong, accomplished women, and it was so great to be able to work in tandem with them to carve out the story, to figure out the characters, and to try to set the tone.

Jennifer, who wrote the original book on which the film is based, is a high school teacher in Texas. She is still a high school teacher; she is in the classroom - maybe right now virtually - and she has a feminist club that she runs after school. They have a book, like, she's in it. So, it's just really great to be able to have her as a resource.

I think it's important that when you're doing any kind of project, it's almost like you're doing like an organ transplant. You really want to make sure that you keep the intention of the piece as safe as possible, and keep it on ice so that it can find its way into the film.

I really love the friendship with Vivian and Claudia, and I thought was so nice that the film explored how they come from two different places. Can you talk about how their background affects their response to Moxie?

Lauren Tsai: I think because Claudia is living with her mom, who is coming from China and is a single mom, the pressures that Claudia faces are a lot different. Because she has a lot riding on her shoulders, and just a lot of cultural pressures as to what her mom would be comfortable with her doing with her life. And they've put a lot on her to go to college and to carry the family on her back.

I think that when Vivian and Claudia were younger, they probably never thought about these things. They were just kids, they grew up and they were friends who would listen to music, watch movies, talk about crazy stuff, go outside, whatever. But the pressures of the world start to layer on, and you start to realize the people that you love, who are the same as you, come from very different places. We have to be empathetic towards that, and we have to try to understand. We need to be thinking outside of ourselves. Because I think that when we get caught up in our heads, that's really when we lose the connection.

Hadley Robinson: Yeah, I think there are higher stakes for Claudia, and I think there are more limitations as well. Vivian has never had to address any of the things that Claudia has to address.

I love that you see that part of their relationship unfold in the movie for the first time, because they have been lifelong friends and the fact that it's never discussed... I just like that you're able to see it develop in the film, and you watch them learn from each other. You see Vivian's reaction to hearing Claudia's truth, which she shares with Vivian and really opens up her heart and speaks her truth. But yeah, they're coming from different places.

Vivian doesn't address it until a very specific moment in the film because Claudia brings it to her attention.

More: 10 Projects Amy Poehler Has Done Since Parks And Recreation Ended

Moxie drops March 3 on Netflix.