Until her comeback show in London last month, actor and pop star Hilary Duff had never sung her most iconic song live. Granted, it’s been 18 years since she last toured, but “What Dreams Are Made Of”—the glitter-doused duet (with her Italian doppelganger) lifted from the most memorable moment of 2003’s The Lizzie McGuire Movie—has been embraced, and occasionally memed, for almost as long as its been around. Not since the angel rolled the stone away has a resurrection felt so culturally important.
Yes, she is back—but this isn’t wholly a throwback event. We might know her for that crop of iconic early acting projects, like Lizzie McGuire, Cheaper By the Dozen, and Agent Cody Banks, but the pop hits that came with them have always felt like her constant. A decade ago, she dropped a record titled Breathe In, Breathe Out, which maybe didn’t quite cut the Duff mustard, even by her own admission. (She’s previously called it “a little clunky”.) So on the new one, Luck… or Something, she’s doing it her way, you could say. In more ways than one: The album’s executive producer is her husband, the record producer and songwriter Matthew Koma, who’s worked on deep cuts for Britney Spears and Shania Twain.
Duff’s comeback arrives after a half decade of TV work, leading two seasons of How I Met Your Father and, for a brief moment, executive producing and starring in a reboot of Lizzie McGuire. The latter project failed to materialize. It makes sense then that music came in its place. What she’s made sounds great: like Kacey Musgraves if she put down the edibles, adjacent to god-tier Carly Rae Jepsen. What we can say is that it went off at the London show, with a crowd of mostly-millennials shrieking along to the hits and appreciating the new stuff. The whole album is out on February 20, and she’s touring arenas—as she should—later this year.
The day after the show, she meets me at the Afro-Carribean restaurant 139Fika in Peckham. It’s just after 2pm, but she’s eating her third meal of the day for the purpose of press, after doing a TikTok mukbang at a 24-hour bagel place, and a podcast revolving around food. She orders chargrilled chicken with grains.
Douglas Greenwood: Congrats on last night! After not performing for so long, what did it feel like?
Hilary Duff: A really weird mix of ‘Oh, I know this,’ and ‘What the hell am I doing?’. Seven years ago, I wouldn’t feel so confident like playing my old music. Maybe it’s because I feel so proud of the new music that I’m able to celebrate the past too.
Luck… or Something is your sixth album, but did any part of making it felt new to you?
I think my old music, even though the route was different, was very much mine too. I always had my fingers in it. But this record was the first time that I’d made music with just me and Matt, the most trusted person in my life. He knew what was important: He found the shape, and then I went in and did interior design!
Our life is mostly driving our kids places, and being really freaking busy, so it was cool to get to spend time doing something that was healing. He always says the sweetest things about it.
What were you listening to in the process of recording?
I always joke that I just want to be sixty with a glass of white wine on a yacht, playing cards with my friends in a kaftan, listening to soft rock music. But during recording, I really wasn’t listening to much. I really love Audrey Hobert. I want to scream and sing and dance like her in my room. There’s just something so cleansing about her songs.
Do you ever listen to your songs for fun?
Not unless my kids are in the car. Or if I’ve just recorded something, then I’m listening to it a lot.
What transforms a song into a timeless banger?
The pre-chorus needs to be sticky, and then the chorus needs to drop and make you feel alive!
What’s cool to you?
An early bedtime and a great night’s sleep. Or a facial. I’ve started crocheting too. After the show last night, my body was telling me I had to do something with my hands, so I did that. So far, I’ve made a hat and a scarf.
Have you figured out TikTok yet?
I tap TikTok when I need to find out about something quickly. Almost like it was ChatGPT or a news source. Instagram is where I do my mindless scrolling. I enjoy living in the private life of my TikTok feed. It’s so slow. I’ll think something’s happened and I’ll show Matt, and he’ll tell me it happened two years ago. I’m a millennial, so I’m not ashamed for things to be a little slower.
“I might do a Lizzie McGuire reboot at 60.”
hilary duff
Do you know what your screen time is?
I think it’s around six-and-a-half hours a day.
I wanted to ask about the Lizzie McGuirereboot. Do you feel any sadness about that not happening?
I’m sad [those ideas] are going to waste, but maybe I feel slightly happy because I don’t know if I would have made music a priority. But I’m sad that we didn’t get to explore what her life would be like now. I have a great relationship with Disney, so no disrespect, but I feel like they should have listened to me. I’m the age of the people that would watch this, and I know what they would want. It wasn’t like I wanted something crazy, but I wanted her to be grown up. I think they were a little scared.
Maybe one day we’ll get it!
Maybe! I feel like I wouldn’t do it at 40, but I might do it at 60.
Where are those other Lizzie McGuire characters right now?
I think Paolo is still giving girls rides on the back of a vespa, and it’s inappropriate at this point.
I feel like people forget you were in Human Nature, a movie made by Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry, who did Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. What do you remember about that?
Well, I was 12. I knew what I had auditioned for, and that Michel Gondry was some fancy French director—but I was a little scrub from Texas. After I got the job my mom picked me up from summer camp, and we got on a flight to LA. I played the younger version of Patricia Arquette’s character, and I was in one scene, wearing a white old fashioned bra from the ’60s, with hair glued to my chest. We were shooting it, and I couldn’t understand anything Michele was saying because he’s French—all I know is he was getting frustrated. He started stomping, and I was panicking, and I didn’t have a shirt on, and I was covered in hair. It was all so fucking weird. That was my experience in a fancy Cannes movie.
You’re someone with so much perspective. If you were to experience your career again, would you do it in the same way?
I’m so happy where I landed. I’ve had a lot of career highs and lows, and not all of them were so public. But there were times when I was really scared I wasn’t gonna get a job again, or if anybody out there cared. I’d probably say no more often than I did, and have faith. I also chose my family. I’d take all of the lulls, and the phone not ringing, for them.
