Lizzie McGuire ended 16 years ago, but Hilary Duff still feels the reverberations in her career.
She tells Cosmopolitan U.K.: “I'm at such a different place in my life now, being a mother and a wife–it doesn't weigh on me anymore. I don't feel like people only see me that way, but even when they do, I feel appreciative of it because she was very impactful on so many people's lives.”
Duff didn’t always feel so chill about it though: “I definitely went through big frustrations of being like, ‘Why can I not get a shot at being someone else?' Not that I want to dog every casting director out there, but there's a very small handful of people who are character actors and can be hired for roles that are truly different from one another. From age 21 to 25, before I became a mom, there was a lot of frustration. I would get to producer callback and they'd be like, 'She's so great and she gave us the best reading and blah, blah blah, but she's Hilary Duff…'”
Duff, who is 33, is even returning to the role that made her a household name, though it’s unclear what form it will take after creator Terri Minsky abandoned the deal with Disney over creative differences.
She told Cosmo: “There's still no, like, 'For sure, this is happening,' but I think they're pretty confident that we can make the show that I want, and that they want, for Disney. I really want to do right by 30-year-olds who grew up with Lizzie and still have that 12-year- old voice inside of them, cheering them on but also making them feel like an idiot at times. But, you know, 30-year-olds have sexual experiences and drink alcohol so I think they're just trying to wrap their heads around what that looks like, on that platform. I don't want to do it unless I can speak to the people I care about, and Lizzie can be there for those people again.”