Hilary Duff Still Hopeful for ‘Lizzie McGuire’ Revival: ‘I Don’t Think It’s Dead’
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Fear not Lizzie McGuire fans, because Lizzie herself — How I Met Your Father star Hilary Duff — still has hope that the short-lived revival could happen, more than a year after the series was dropped by Disney+.
“I don’t think it’s dead, and I don’t think it’s alive,” she said on the Just for Variety podcast. “I think it’s just kind of sitting there.”
After years of discussions between Disney and Duff about bringing the beloved Disney Channel series (which originally aired from 2001 to 2004) back to life, the revival finally was officially announced in August 2019. Two episodes were filmed before original showrunner Terri Minsky left the series following creative differences. Disney officially pulled the plug not long after, as it was ultimately deemed too mature for the streaming service’s younger-skewed audience.
“I feel a huge responsibility to honor the fans’ relationship with Lizzie who, like me, grew up seeing themselves in her,” Duff said in a statement during production delays in 2020, even suggesting the show be moved to Hulu after Disney did the same with teen drama Love, Victor.
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“I’d be doing a disservice to everyone by limiting the realities of a 30-year-old’s journey to live under the ceiling of a PG rating,” Duff added. “It’s important to me that just as her experiences as a preteen [and] teenager navigating life were authentic, her next chapters are equally as real and relatable.”
In a recent interview with Cosmopolitan, Duff talked about where the revival would have picked up with her breakout character. Says Duff: “[Lizzie] was moving back home with her parents because she caught her soon-to-be fiancé cheating on her, and she was falling flat on her face at the moment and being like, ‘I need to pivot because everything that I thought was wasn’t, and I’m turning 30. What the f–k?'”
Thankfully for the actress, everything happens for a reason. She told Variety that the revival’s shelving opened the door for her to star in Hulu’s HIMYF as NYC hopeless romantic Sophie, whose older counterpart is played by Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall. “I just keep my heart and my mind open,” Duff noted. “I don’t think that How I Met Your Father would’ve come about if Lizzie had happened.”
How I Met Your Father, Tuesdays, Hulu
