“This is a strange time to promote a film, considering what’s going on in the world,” said Shruti Ganguly in our Zoom interview. Ganguly is the director of the new culinary comedy, Tripped Up, which features an almost all-women ensemble cast that includes Leah Lewis, Ariel Winter, Sasha Fox, Ashley Moore, Judy Gold, and Vanessa Williams. “But I think we need more comedies. We need more joy. We need these moments to travel and believe in basic things like friendship.”

Tripped Up finds Lizzy (Lewis), a hot-headed and aspiring chef, who accepts an impromptu opportunity to compete at renowned, weekend-long Saucy Food Festival. Frustrated with her restaurant kitchen job and demanding boss (Gold), Lizzy sees the festival as an opportunity to recalibrate and potentially redeem herself (she famously lost a televised cooking competition years before).

Of course, she can’t do it alone, so she enlists the help of her friends Kai, Taylor, and Mary (Winter, Fox, and Moore, respectively). The journey to and throughout the festival isn’t without its bumps, but, along the way, Lizzy finds unexpected help from Patty (Williams), a local farmer.

An Accidental Gen Z Movie

Interestingly, Tripped Up was originally conceived as a wholly different movie. According to Ganguly, the first draft she read “had four girlfriends around the age of 30, and then they go to a music festival.” But as she and her team, which included screenwriters Cristina Catanzaro and Carrie Shaw, were in the middle of developing the film, they caught wind of a similar story being told at Netflix (which turned out to be the girlfriends-themed Someone Great).

“It’s a bummer that two films that could have something similar couldn’t exist in the same space, because there needs to be more female buddy comedies, clearly,” Ganguly said. Forced to return to the drawing board, the director then pitched the idea of focusing on a younger age group of women characters. “There’s a different type of time right now, where we’re having our crises in the midst of social media. And Carrie is a chef, so I pitched the idea of [telling this story] in the world of food.”

In order to capture the essence of Gen Z, Ganguly leaned on and encouraged the core group of younger actors (Lewis, Winter, Fox, and Moore) to pull from their own experiences and offer input on their characters. When asked about working on a set with an openness for collaboration, Lewis said, “It was really beautiful because, given the fact this was a female-led cast and crew, it was cool to be in girl world for a second and bounce ideas off other ladies, get different perspectives. I felt really free, and I had so much fun.”

Netflix

Lewis’ star has been steadily rising since her breakthrough in The CW’s Nancy Drew and Netflix’s original film, The Half of It. It was particularly her restrained performance in the latter that wowed Ganguly. “Leah is truly one of the greatest actors I’ve ever worked with,” she said. “Her deep work that she does every day when it comes to reflecting on what she needs to do for the day, what’s required — she’s remarkable. I would work with her on every single movie if I can.”

“Lizzy was someone that I was very careful with,” Lewis said of her preparation for the role. “She has a dream, she’s trying her best, but I took a lot of care into lacing a sense of tiredness and a bit of an attitude problem with her. We see how talented she is, we see what she’s capable of, so preparing for her was kind of like: how do I create this character that is still lovable, but also her own worst enemy?”

Related: 10 Comedy Movies That Define Gen Z

A Story of Women Friendship and Empowerment
DECAL

The food may be one of the visual highlights of Tripped Up, but what’s most remarkable about the film is its exploration of different relationships between women, all of whom support each other (though it may not always be without friction). And while the friendship between the four core friends is, of course, a joy to watch, there are two other, equally important relationships to note: the one between Lizzy and her boss Missy, and the one between Lizzy and Patty.

“I love playing mean people because I’m not mean,” Gold said of Missy, who’s a sort of Devil Wears Prada Miranda Priestly, but in the kitchen. To the writers’ credit, however, the script takes care in adding dimension to Missy and her relationship with Lizzy, which may be antagonistic on the surface, but is coming from a place of support. She’s hard on Lizzy, but it’s with the ultimate goal of fostering her talent, from one woman chef to another. “You end up liking her even though she’s caustic because she’s vulnerable. You can sense that vulnerability and that nurturing in her.”

A stand-up comedian for over 40 years now, Gold recalled how “in the ’80s and ’90s, they would never put two women in a show, [setting] it up as if there’s room for one of you, and that’s it.” This was why she leaned into playing Missy as a no-nonsense guide for Lizzy: “Being a chef is such a male-dominated profession. Having to say, ‘Here, I’m giving you everything I can give you so that you can now take the torch and give it to someone else’ — I think there’s a lot of that when it comes to women professionals.”

Related: Tripped Up Trailer Delivers the Perfect Recipe for a Female-Led Comedy

In that same vein, the relationship between Patty and Lizzy is extra special. Even though Ganguly revealed that “there were no racial identifiers” in the script or casting process, it doesn’t take away from the significance of seeing a Black woman being the one to hold the door open for an Asian woman. It’s a moment that wholly resonated with Lewis.

“Given Vanessa’s long trek in this industry and still coming out on top, and being one of the most beautiful, strong, annd talented women and actors out there, the moment I met her, I was like, ‘You are a special person,'” Lewis said, who, mirroring her character’s position, would ask Williams “a bunch of questions and let her take the lead.” She added, “I think when you’re in a room with someone who just has that aura that is so hard to ignore, I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to lean into this.’ It was a really special moment.”

From DECAL, Tripped Up is now available on demand. (This film was approved for an interim agreement with SAG-AFTRA.)