Outside the West Hollywood premiere for Senior Year, it’s so loud that director Alex Hardcastle assumes he’s being asked about his favorite Spice Girl. “I think Posh,” he says. But then the conversation shifts away from pop-culture pleasures and into juicier territory. What was his high school experience like? After all, the ability to define one’s teen years — and overcome the most seemingly impossible parts — is perhaps the most poignant theme in Senior Year.. In one moment, Stephanie Conway (Angourie Rice as a teen; Rebel Wilson as an adult) is literally at the top of the pyramid as a high school wallflower turned popular cheer captain, thanks to her sheer determination, and in the next, she’s a 37-year-old woman who’s lost the past two decades (while in a coma) and wants a do-over with a happier ending. 

Although Hardcastle didn’t experience a medical crisis like Stephanie, it turns out that he has his own scars from adolescence to share. “The first day I arrived at high school, I was put into a trash can and thrown downstairs by some other boys. I was like, OK, this is what high school's going to be like. This is going to suck,” he recalls. To make matters worse, when Hardcastle’s headmaster found him, he was the one in trouble. “I'm like, ‘Well, you think I put myself in a trash can and threw myself downstairs?,’ ” he says. The director learned one big lesson from the experience: “Authority is not always right.” 

Hardcastle isn’t alone. Here’s what others from the film’s cast and crew have to say about their high school growing pains... 

Angourie Rice (Young Stephanie Conway) 

“Oh, going away so much [was difficult]. Because I was going away to work,” Rice recalls. The 21-year-old Australian actor has been working consistently since her first short film in 2009, which meant she traded a lot of time in school hallways for being on movie sets. “That was the hardest thing: Coming back and everything was different, but I got through it.” 

Brandon Scott Jones (Mr. Randall Tapper & co-writer) 

“I struggled with my personal appearance and being confident in my own skin,” says Brandon Scott Jones. “It really, really stressed me out, and it was really, really tough, but I’m glad because that type of stuff kind of makes you stronger, hopefully. In the words of Britney Spears: ‘Now I'm stronger.’ ” 

Jade Bender (Bri Balbo)

Jade Bender skipped two grades, meaning she entered high school at age 12 and graduated at just 16. “I was experiencing real-life physical growing pains. So navigating that alongside 17- and 18-year-olds was probably my biggest growing pain,” she says. “When you’re that age, you’re seeing so many different styles and hearing all different types of music. Just figuring out who I was, what I wanted my style to be, my personality to be was a little difficult.” 

Ana Yi Puig (2002 Tiff Blanchette) 

Ana Yi Puig went to a performing arts high school in Florida. Sometimes, such a decision would make an aspiring actor all the more sure of their path. In Yi Puig’s case, it had the opposite effect. “The curriculum was very rigorous, and it kind of made me question if this was all worth it,” she says. “Figuring out who I was honestly, figuring out what I stood for and what I wanted to support and where my boundaries were — high school was the first time that that was really tested for me in a mature way. I knew I wanted to be an actress and tell stories, but at what cost and like, what was I willing to sacrifice?” 

Yi Puig found filming Senior Year “healing” after such a complicated time, saying, “I never wanted to be a bully, but it felt good to be able to, in a safe space and while playing pretend, dish out what I got in high school.” 

Boris Martin/Netflix

Avantika (Janet Singh) 

Mononymous actor Avantika is bubbly and glowing on the red carpet of the Senior Year premiere. But when asked what her biggest growing pain was, she confesses, “Definitely coming out of my shell.” It seems like she’s succeeded. “I’m continuing to try. In middle school, I was literally a ball of introvert. I still am an introvert, even though I don't come off as one. I’ve been alone for the past two weeks, so I’m hyped up now. I’ve gotten my batteries fueled up.” 

Jermaine Stegall (Composer) 

“Growing pain? I think it’s getting hit by a motorcycle, literally,” Senior Year’s composer says. About that motorcycle accident: Stegall was the composer for the high school band, and he was returning to campus with a group of friends. “As we darted back, a motorcycle came out of nowhere. Where do I go but the band room to find safety. Five minutes later, security comes in, finds me.” His friends still won’t let him live the incident down. “Everybody I was in band with remembers this too, by the way. There are jokes about tire tracks going up my back.”

Mary Holland (Martha Reiser) 

“My biggest high school growing pain is similar to what is featured in this movie, which is struggling to understand who I was and to be that without fear or shame or worrying about what other people think,” Holland says. Stepping back into Senior Year’s high school as Martha Reiser, the smart and capable best friend to leading lady Stephanie, was “cathartic,” Holland says. 

Molly Brown (2002 Martha Reiser) 

“One of the things that was crazy for me is I transferred to a new high school, without kids from my middle school,” Brown recalls. “And then I immediately became friends with a bunch of people who were two years older than me.” This was a temporary win. “I had really cool friends for a while,” she says. But then they left. “I was like, ‘All right. Who do I know now?’ “ Brown now says she considers co-stars Angourie Rice and Zaire Adams close friends. 

Tyler Barnhardt (2002 Blaine Balbo) 

Barnhardt cringes the moment he thinks of high school. Why? “I would probably say, looking back on my haircuts,” he laughs. “In high school, I think I just lost something. I had bad haircuts — it was just flat and short. Looking back on pictures, I’m like, ‘Dang, boy, you could have grown your hair out a little bit or something. Make a choice!’ ”

After surviving the pitfalls of teenage grooming, Barnhardt is delighted to go back and do it right for Senior Year, saying, “I didn't realize, honestly, how much of my boy dreams I was going to live out until I saw the movie and was introduced in a slow-mo.” 

Zaire Adams (2002 Seth Byrd) 

“My biggest high school growing pain was just really accepting me in every capacity: How my hair looks, how my hairline looks, how my skin looks, how my complexion is,” Adams admits. “It was a matter of really accepting who I am. Every facet of me — my sexuality, my individuality. It was just that struggle. But it paid off because I’m here and I love every part of me.” 

Zoë Chao (Tiffany Bilbo) 

“The whole thing was so painful,” Chao says with a deep sigh. But, she found a bright spot at a fairly young age. “Realizing that there was life after high school [was big],” she reveals. “I remember [realizing that in] my sophomore year of high school, and I was like, ‘Oh, this feels like really important information.’ ”