It's been 16 years since Lizzie McGuire ended. And while the show may seem so yesterday to some, true fans know it never gets old.
Now, Hilary Duff is opening up about playing the iconic character—and how she has nothing but love for Lizzie—in a new interview with 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," she told the magazine for its November issue. "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."
However, there was a time when the Disney Channel alum just wanted to move on from the role. "I definitely went through big frustrations of being like, ‘Why can I not get a shot at being someone else?'" she recalled. "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," the 33-year-old actress added. "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…'"
In fact, Duff said that when Miley Cyrus' Hannah Montana and Selena Gomez's Wizards of Waverly Place came along in 2006 and 2007, the singer was "on tour and desperate not to be Lizzie McGuire anymore."
As fans are well aware, Duff went on to land a number of leading roles after the hit series, including A Cinderella Story, The Haunting of Sharon Tate and Younger.
However, Duff may be returning to her Lizzie McGuire roots. In August 2019, she announced she was coming back for a sequel series set to stream Disney+, which would follow Lizzie's life as an adult. Two episodes in, creator Terri Minsky left over creative differences and production was halted. Duff also expressed her concerns about "limiting the realities of a 30-year-old's journey to live under the ceiling of a PG rating."
"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+," Duff told Cosmopolitan U.K. "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."
Duff said she had been approached about doing a reboot for years and had always previously declined. It wasn't until 2019 that she felt ready to give the character another go. So what changed?
"It just doesn't annoy me anymore when people refer to me as Lizzie McGuire or say that was my biggest role," she shared at one point, "because it paved the way for all the other roads I've been able to take."