Hilary Duff says she’s still down for a potential Lizzie McGuire reboot — and it sounds like one might just be back on the table.
via People:
During an appearance on Thursday’s Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, the actress and singer, 35, said she’d be up for revisiting the early 2000s hit show if it aligned with her desire to portray a more adult Lizzie.
Lizzie McGuire aired for two seasons on the Disney Channel between 2001 and 2004. It also spawned a 2003 theatrical film The Lizzie McGuire Movie.
While there had long been discussions of spinoffs in the time since the series wrapped, a sequel series starring Duff and the original cast was eventually confirmed in 2019 with Disney+. But shortly after it was announced, Duff revealed in December 2020 that it was not moving forward, later explaining that she and Disney disagreed with the direction they wanted to take the character in.
“I think they are really trying to figure out what kind of content they want living on Disney+, and that doesn’t totally align with, like, where I see Lizzie right now,” she said during a May 2021 appearance on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show. “I’m very protective of her and they’re very protective of her.”
That was then, though. Now, Duff appeared to hint she and Disney are coming closer.
“Disney+ was very new,” she told host Andy Cohen, on WWHL taking a moment to gather her thoughts as she explained to Cohen what had initially happened with the first round of reboot plans. “And I think they were figuring out their …” she said, trailing off, “and we were figuring out our …”
Duff has long voiced her desire to follow Lizzie as she navigated adulthood.
“I’ve been so honored to have the character of Lizzie in my life,” Duff wrote on Instagram in 2020, when announcing the reboot would not be moving forward. “She has made such a lasting impact on many, including myself. To see the fans’ loyalty and love for her, to this day, means so much to me. I know the efforts and conversations have been everything trying to make a reboot work, but sadly [and] despite everyone’s best efforts, it isn’t going to happen.”
“I want any reboot of Lizzie to be honest and authentic to who Lizzie would be today. It’s what the character deserves,” she continued. “We can all take a moment to mourn the amazing woman she would have been and the adventures we would have taken with her. I’m very sad, but I promise everyone tried their best and the stars just didn’t align. Hey now, this is what 2020’s made of.”
Two episodes of the planned reboot were filmed, and would have followed Lizzie “acting like a 30-year-old in a modern world,” according to Duff.
She opened up further about the proposed premise of the program in a 2022 interview with Cosmopolitan.
“My character was moving back home with her parents because she caught her soon-to-be fiancé cheating on her,” she told the magazine. “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—?'”
She danced around that answer very diplomatically — which says to us the reboot could possibly go on as planned.
Hilary Duff says she’d still be down for a Lizzie McGuire reboot if it could live up to her vision: “I’m optimistic.” ?? #WWHL @HilaryDuff @Disney @DisneyPlus pic.twitter.com/OaIgRagDeT
— Watch What Happens Live! (@BravoWWHL) January 27, 2023
