Hilary Duff's Quotes About Lizzie McGuire Took Me Right Back To The 2000s
"She was me, and I was her, and that was that.”
Nothing serves up nostalgia quite like early-2000s Disney Channel TV shows. While so many series impacted fans during those years, Lizzie McGuire was extra special. The series, which aired from 2001 to 2004, starred the one and only Hilary Duff, who rose to fame thanks to her quirky titular character. The show followed her journey of navigating middle school along with her best friends, Miranda and Gordo, and years later, it remains one of her most career-defining roles. But as she told Bustle in a new interview, breaking out of the Lizzie McGuire mold wasn’t easy.
Duff is now a mother of three, and she’s had countless roles outside of Disney. However, she still attributes her success to all things Lizzie. “If Lizzie McGuire and Disney taught me anything, it taught me how to work. And how to power through and be energetic and show up,” she said.
Duff was just 13 years old when she began appearing on the tween sitcom, and she admitted it was too young for her to know how to separate herself from the character she played. “I was too young to do a character dive on Lizzie,” she said. “I think I was just playing myself. And I really related to that girl. She was me, and I was her, and that was that.”
One thing Duff isn’t afraid of? A little honesty. She’s the first to admit her breakout role also hindered her future in Hollywood at certain times. She recalled casting directors saying things like, “Oh, she’s too famous. She’s too sweet. We know her as Lizzie McGuire.”
Understandably, Duff wanted to be seen as someone outside of her character from Lizzie McGuire. “By the time I was 18, I was like, ‘If I hear that name [Lizzie McGuire] one more time!’” she said.
These days, Duff has accepted that people will always closely associate her with the Lizzie McGuire name. “I’ve obviously had to think about [Lizzie] a lot,” she said. “The lines get so blurry between me and her, and I think they are for the world, still. And they probably always will be. I think just accepting that has brought me a lot of peace.”
