"Hustlers" is an instantly-iconic New York City saga, the wildly true story of a crew of strippers banding together against Wall Street power players in the wake of the 2008 stock market crash with characters played by Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu leading the charge in powerhouse performances.

But the film, opening in theaters Sept. 13, has plenty of New Jersey spirit. After all, it's the tale of scrappy, enterprising outsiders carving their own path right to the heart of the big city vividly told by Holmdel native writer and director Lorene Scafaria, a self-described "Jersey girl at my core."

"I grew up in the shadows of New York in a small town, a commuters' town," said Scafaria. "So for me New York was door-to-door an hour away to the greatest city in the world, and so I love New York and I also felt like I grew up with these people, these girls, these guys."

Scafaria had friends who stripped after high school and college, working to pay off student loans, and said that she herself had a brief stint answering phones in a north Jersey "boiler room" in the 1990s, "basically just a giant room full of phones where guys were selling bad stocks to old people and there was nothing right about it.

"I had a lot of experience just on the outskirts of the world that the movie touches on," Scafaria said. "And so yeah, there's a Jersey streak running through (the film), and I'm sure there's that bridge-and-tunnel attitude that probably permeates my work."

With "Hustlers," Scafaria — who previously wrote and directed "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World" (2012) and "The Meddler" (2015) — adapted Jessica Pressler's 2015 New York Magazine piece "The Hustlers at Scores." It's a rich piece of true crime reporting that touches on universal themes of gender, economic disparity and class conflict.

"I think if you're anyone who's worked in your life, if you're someone who hasn't had money in your life and has had trouble paying the bills at any time, that there's something very familiar about this even though there's such a large stigma around what these women did for a living — again, not where they ended up, but where they started from," Scafaria said. "Strippers face such a stigma, and sex workers in general, so I'm pleased there's something so relatable in it because that's what I found in it."

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And while her film is a recent history period piece, opening in 2007, Scafaria said more than a decade later "our value system hasn't changed that much."

"We still value women for their beauty and their bodies, whether that's sex or motherhood, and we still value men for their money and power and success," she said. "And I think the trickle-down of both of those things is dangerous, so I can't help but have empathy for women and men and all of us who are trying to navigate this broken value system.

"I certainly don't fault any gender or any job or place any blame or stigma on anybody who is working within that system. I certainly think we should decriminalize women who are working within that system, but I also think it's OK to hold a mirror up and kind of wonder how the rules of the club are the rules of the world."

Scafaria brought the story to life with an incomparably awesome ensemble that, in addition to Lopez and Wu, also includes music superstars Cardi B and Lizzo, "Transparent" co-star Trace Lysette (who formerly worked at New York City strip club Scores), Canadian author and performer Jacqueline Frances, also known as Jacq the The Stripper, and noted burlesque performer Marcy Richardson.

"There were a lot of different women that I knew I wanted to be a part of it," said Scafaria, "and probably the biggest miracle was getting everybody in the same room at the same time because of all of the incredibly busy schedules.

"But to be honest, it wasn't that hard to make something inclusive because there's an incredible pool of talented women out there and I think we just have the kind of movie that celebrates that and celebrates the differences and the similarities, the commonalities, that we all face, and also the different ways that we walk through the world and the world reacts to us."

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"Hustlers," 109 minutes, rated R, opens in theaters everywhere Friday, Sept. 13, www.hustlers.movie.

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