Like many kids, Hadley Robinson went through a revolving door of phases of what she thought she wanted to be when she grew up. There was the athlete phase, a journalist phase, the president of the U.S. Then there was the Jessica Chastain phase: Chastain went to Juilliard, so Robinson decided she had to go there, too . Chastain is a vegan, so Robinson followed suit. With acting, Robinson realized at a young age she didn’t have to choose any one of the phases: you get to be them all .
Robinson first read the script for “Moxie” while on a plane, and found herself in tears for most of it, rocked by how much she related to the main character Vivian’s journey of understanding the sexism around her and finding her way through doing something about it. Vivian learns about the Riot grrrl movement, zines and bands like Bikini Kill and Sleater Kinney through her mom, played by Poehler, which inspires her to create her own anonymous feminist zine at her high school. To prepare, Robinson spent hours wearing headphones, listening to the female punk bands of the Nineties discovering their impact for herself.
“I’ve already done the pilot and now it’s been stagnant for over a year and I’m trying to keep her within me,” she says. “I’m trying desperately to get into basketball, even though I really still don’t know what’s going on at all.”