Life after Lizzie - Hangin With - Hilary Duff

Girls' Life, August-Sept, 2003 by Jodi Bryson

By the time you're done shopping for back-to-school loot, Hilary Duff will have finished shooting her new flich Cheaper by the Dozen, be on tour promoting her new CD Metamorphosis...and be saying 'cheese' for her driver's license photo!

Aug. 28 is a day that's beyond exciting for any true Hilary fan. It's the day her CD Metamorphosis is being released. And Hilary's excited, too. She's even more of a chatterbox about her music than Cheaper by the Dozen, the big new movie she just finished with Steve Martin ("He's so funny!"), Ashton Kutcher ("He's so cute!") and Smallville's super-hot Tom Welling ("He's so nice!"). But, truthfully, the CD-release day isn't the big deal of the moment. The day Hilary is really stoked about is Sept. 28.

Any other birthday, America's most recognizable teen would be working, most likely promoting a movie, a book release or the Lizzie McGuire Movie DVD, maybe even christening a small country somewhert. on Hilary's 16th, she's getting her driver's license, and that's the sweetest part of being her right now. "Oh my gosh! I've been counting this down for months," she says, sounding so different, so mature, from her familiar spazzy Lizzie self. But before she can reveal her dream car or say where she'll cruise with older sister and BFF Haylie, 18, an authoritative adult interrupts to remind Hilary the Star that she has a studio appointment in a half hour. After that, there's a meeting with fashion designers about her new clothing line Stuff by Hilary Duff.

Sounds glam, and it is. But anything Hilary's into involves a whole new chunk of appointments, some of them overlapping others. "Oh, sorry!" she says a mile a minute. "You'll see my clothes next spring, but I had no idea how much work it was. We had to choose everything from fabrics and colors to the design of the hang-tags. And I'm still finishing the album. There's just so much to do all the time. But when I'm done with the movie, I'm going to ask my mom if I can cut my hair like Paula Abdul's new haircut, but with fringe-y bangs. I like bangs because they're versatile. I want to dye it pink underneath."

Hilary the Star

Hils (as diehard fans know her) is busy. Busy like no other 10th-grader. At least now she can drive herself to appointments, interviews, tapings, photo shoots and (yuck) crusty meetings. Even when you're 15-going-on-16, there are lots of meetings, especially after a certain small detail surfaces in the news that the beloved Lizzie McGuire--the TV girl every real girl could relate to, the girl whose show has won two consecutive Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards--has officially called it guits.

You've heard the gossip, right? Hilary bailed. Hilary wanted way too much money. Hilary doesn't care about her fans. Hilary this. Hilary that. All of it's ugly. But is any of it true?

Hilary the Girl is a happy, smart teenager from Houston, with a caring mom and dad who taught her lovely manners. She worked hard to get where she is, starting as a ballerina in a production of The Nutcracker when she was in elementary school. She has acting lessons, voice lessons and, like you, too much homework. She chills out by jumping and tumbling on the trampoline in her backyard, or just listening to loud music. She's super active with the charity organization Kids With a Cause, and does great stuff like visiting sick kids in hospitals to paint with them. Now does that sound like a ruthless teen diva?

After we posed a bunch of questions to bait Hilary into dishing, not only did she refuse to talk one second of trash about even dumb stuff like which actor boys she's met who are maybe dorky in real life, she made it clear she would never dump on Lizzie McGuire. For one, she digs Lizzie. It made her. But mostly, she's in love with you guys, the fans she constantly talks about with an adult-like sense of responsibility. She knows Lizzie is important to you. In the two mornings she spent with GL, Hilary proved all the gossip to be what gossip usually is: total garbage. But still...

Hilary, why?

"Lizzie was over a year ago, but no one knew it," she says with a long sigh about the show that made a 5-foot-2 girl larger than life. "What girls don't know is that with any Disney show--That's So Raven, Lizzie, whatever--all they make is 65 episodes. It wasn't my choice not to do a sequel to the movie, but it was all over the press that it was just about money, and that was a complete lie. But that business side of working...I can't stand it. I'm just a teenage girl, and I have absolutely no interest in money or how many units have sold or any of it. When that stuff comes up, I'm like, 'I'm bored. Can I go now?'"

There it is. Hilary didn't bail, she did not demand a truckload of money, and she hasn't stopped caring about her fans. She's not like that. She's like you. As for Lizzie? Well, yeah, it's cooked. That part's not gossip. No new adorable klutzy moments. Buh-bye to big-boobed Kate and big-brained Gordo. Adios to the awesome and brave cartoon alter-ego. It hurts because Hilary is Lizzie. "It's so cool because I feel like I have two names," Hilary says, explaining how younger kids will shout, "Lizzie!" when they see her at the mall. But Hilary doesn't want you to bum that she's moving on: "Lizzie will be on the air two more years! The movie is on DVD. Lizzie isn't going anywhere. No movie sequel is planned--that was their decision--but that doesn't mean there won't be one in the future. I just hope my fans like my upcoming projects as much as they did Lizzie."