Hilary Duff Is What Dreams Are Made Of

I’m waking up to a dream sequence. Her team told me this would be audio only because of her frenetic travel schedule. She’d just landed in Auckland for the New Zealand and Australia leg of her tour. Then the name Hilary pops up on the Zoom, she turns on her camera, and I see the most bubbly ball of energy, with her long, sun-streaked locks in loose waves. I freak out. The camera stays on for the whole hour, and it feels like chatting with a bestie. She’s completely locked in, letting her hair down, and I get to ask her all the questions I’ve always dreamt about asking her, probably on behalf of all the fans of our generation who grew up with her.

Though technically, this is our second meeting. In 2014, I brought a first date to her “All About You” premiere, crashed her step-and-repeat pretending to be press, and had him snap our photos. When he asked to see me again, I apparently replied, “can you send me my photos with Hilary?”

Back then, I had no idea the girl in my photos was, in her words, “hanging on by a thread.” Now, more than a decade later, she’s pulled off the pop comeback of the year. Her album luck… or something debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, her highest-charting album since 2007, and she’s played 50 shows so far, many of which sold out in hours. She’s already done New York and London, two cities straight out of “Wake Up,” and Paris is coming in May. Maybe Tokyo? Her crowds are full of the same queer kids from 2004, now adults in butterfly clips and baggy jeans. (She’s been a ride or die for our community since her iconic “That’s So Gay” PSA.) And let’s be clear, she’s not a nostalgia act. Everyone in the audience knows the new album too.

The thing about Hilary is that she was one of the biggest child stars of a generation, and that didn’t come with any guarantee she’d come out the other side in one piece. Playing Lizzie McGuire gave her everything and took a lot out of her. She remembers thinking, “I’m fucking done with you. I want people to see me.” She adds, “It was so weird being a child star and trying to cross that bridge into adulthood, being taken seriously, coming off Disney Channel.” She yearned to break free from a character that never grew up.

And she did. Hilary is proof the role that made you doesn’t have to be the one that defines you.

On her own terms, she made the most honest album of her career, about marriage, desire and the parts of growing up nobody warns you about. She let us into the messy, complicated parts, and we saw ourselves in them. Today, she finally feels the respect from the industry, including from people she felt were hard to please her entire career. Hilary thought she was healing herself, but in the process, she healed us too.

She’s also made peace with the internet turning her most earnest moments, like the “With Love” dance and that PSA, into memes. The gays turned them into camp classics, out of love. “Now I’m like, oh, got it,” she says. “I can play along, too.”

Is it luck? She’d say so. But a lot of it is something of her own: smart decisions, and the family she built, which gave her the foundation to say, “I don’t give a fuck.”

“I really do mean it to inspire people who feel stuck, or who haven’t done something they wanted to,” she says. And she’s not done. She’s already planning more music as she takes the tour around the world, and she’s eyeing a return to acting, whether a book adaptation, a limited series or a movie. “Now that I know that I can.”

Read on for PAPER’s cover story with Hilary Duff about the record she’s glad she never toured, why husband Matt told her to “calm the fuck down” about the new holiday EP, and the two old songs she can’t bring herself to redo. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

[Shares the photo] This is from my first date with him. Literally, our anniversary is the day I met you. We got engaged last year.

Stop it right now. Wait, I am dying. Oh my god. Okay, what am I wearing? Look at my ponytail bump. What’s happening? That is so funny. I remember that. Look at you now. Look at both of us. That’s so fun.

“Mature” feels like you’re talking to your younger self. If you could go back to that Hilary on the step-and-repeat in 2014, right when “All About You” was coming out, which is criminally underrated, by the way...

I know, I know. They did me so dirty.

It’s my favorite. What would you tell her?

Oh, God, that was such a confusing time. So much was going on personally in my life that I feel like I was hanging on by a thread. My main priority obviously was my child, making sure he was okay. I’m pretty sure I was actively getting divorced in 2014. And I was making [Breathe In. Breathe Out.], and I didn’t know what I was doing making that record.

“All About You,” I wrote that song. Totally personal. “Brave Heart” and some of those other ones were snapshots of what was happening in my life. But the flip side was there was no cohesion. It was listening to people tell me, “This is what people are doing right now,” and me being like, “Okay, yeah, that sounds good.” But when you look back, you’re like, oh, I gained a lot of power and knowledge from that messiness.

I’m actually super proud of that record, because I feel like I had no help and no one listening to me. But I’m also like, God, that girl was just flailing. You can feel sad about it, or you can be like, look, I made some good choices, because I ended up here.

That’s one of my favorite records of yours. It felt cohesive to me, because you were always different flavors of pop.

I appreciate you saying that. My goal was always for “All About You” to be the first single, and the label was like, “No, it’s ‘Chasing the Sun.’” I was like, that is not the right move. It was just frustrating to not be listened to. We’re in a very artist-led time now, where artists really get to choose, and it was different back then. No one really knew what to do with me at the time. Honestly, thank God I didn’t tour that record, because I just wasn’t ready yet.

You were also filming Younger at that time, which I was obsessed with. I have to ask: in “Mature,” when you sing “just younger,” is that in any way a nod to the series?

No. But I love Younger so much. That was one of my good moves, saying yes to it, when I was like, “Oh my god, shit, I don’t know if I can do this. I have a two-year-old. How am I gonna go film?” Living in New York four months a year for seven years was a dream.

Do you love walking around and being like, “Oh my god, I know exactly where they were filming”?

Yes, because that’s the Bank of America building, where I have friends. I started my career in investment banking on Wall Street.

Whoa, what a pivot.

Well, you also did that in Beauty & the Briefcase, so I’m only following in your footsteps.

[Laughs] You’re not allowed to bring up Beauty & the Briefcase. I thought that was one of the things people brushed over and forgot all about.

I love you for it. It’s iconic.

I’m dead.

You’re about to play your first headline show in New Zealand, you have the Australia run, and you’ve already done 50 shows on the Lucky Me tour. After more than a decade away from the stage, what are you most grateful for right now?

The first thing that comes to mind is the fans, and being healthy. I am so incredibly moved every night by the amount of people showing up. Really and truly, it feels like the biggest celebration slash slumber party, tapping into the nostalgia without making me gag. I’m having so much fun getting to revisit the past without the pressures, knowing myself better than I did back then, and getting to tap into that playful, fun energy with the crowd. That’s been really meaningful to me.

And pairing it with my new record, which is an incredibly vulnerable record, and getting to sing those songs and have the audience digest them with me and relate. It’s that connection with people, coming to their cities and seeing the love. It’s incredibly rewarding, and something I never really thought was possible for me again. And the flip side of that is, I’m tired. I’m a mom of four, and I like my coffee machine and my bed.

You looked visibly emotional at your first show back in London earlier this year. What surprised you most about being back on stage this time around?

Just that I can do it. The fact that I can get up there and sing all my songs and move my body and express and share what I am now, what I believe, how I feel. And I know everyone who’s shown up that night is there for me, and has been there for me, and they never went anywhere. I’m really surprised that I’m here at this stage in my life and I get to have this experience again, at 39 years old, with all the life I’ve lived. I never imagined it on this scale.

Was there a moment of doubt going into it?

Of course. I think everyone feels this as they age. It’s harder and harder to do risky things. Then add on being a public figure, being so magnified by the internet. Failing is so public now. I think it held me back for quite some time from making any kind of music industry moves.

I think the safety net of the family I’ve created, my husband, the partner I chose, and feeling really safe and fulfilled at home, made this feel like if it didn’t work, it didn’t matter. I never felt that before. Matt has been in the industry since he was 14 years old, and he’s just a really smart guy. I got to bounce every single one of my ideas off of him. He believes in me more than I believe in myself, and he can see things I have blind spots for.

I know you’ve been asked about this, but I have to ask you about the “With Love” dance. I actually took offense to the internet making fun of it, because that’s my favorite song on Dignity. I saw you perform it live at Z100 Zootopia in 2007. Now you’ve made “With Love” a segment in your show, bringing someone on stage to see who does the dance better. Whose idea was that?

Mine. That has obviously been a huge challenge for me to get over. I’m a sensitive little Libra baby. I’m also pretty tough, but seeing some of those clips over and over, at the peak of social media sharing, I would have done anything for it to go away. And I feel so bad for that girl, who was undernourished and overworked and just not bringing anything to the table at some of those performances. I want to hug her and be like, “You’re gonna be okay, babe.” Now I can see the humor in it, I think through success, or just through stability in my life.

When I first started thinking about making a record, I was like, how am I ever gonna tour? That’s what people wanna see. How am I gonna apply who I am now to the baby version of me? It was such muscle memory that I could sing those songs. And the whole “With Love” thing, I was like, I gotta reclaim this. It is a really fun dance once you learn it. It’s so psychotic and crazy. It just felt like the only way to accept it was to play along with everybody else. And honestly, again, very healing.

Our queer community has a way of taking your most earnest moments, and turning them into camp classics. How does it feel to have your sincerity become camp?

God, no one’s really asked me that question that way before. I feel like now, at this stage in my life, I can join in on the fun. When I was younger, it was too fresh to see it turned into something so silly or funny. When I was filming that PSA, it was so earnest and so real. But I can see the fun in that. I think the “With Love” dance was harder to stomach, seeing it all the time as a joke. Until now, and now I don’t care at all. This is so dramatic, but time heals.

When you reciprocated and joined in, it was almost like a beautiful understanding between you and us.

I feel that for sure. I’ve always ridden so hard for the LGBTQ+ community. They’ve always shown me how to have a good time, shown me how to dress, shown me what kind of music to listen to, shown me how to laugh my face off. Once I moved to LA, I’d say more than 50% of my friend group was gay, and I was like, oh my god, these are my people.

We’re more fun.

So much more fun! The best girlfriend you could ever have. I feel that love, and I speak about it with endearment. For a certain period of time, when I wasn’t actively working, it was so weird being a child star and trying to cross that bridge into adulthood, being taken seriously, coming off Disney Channel. I felt like so much was against me that the funnier things from my past that won’t go away, I felt really sensitive about for a long time, until my work had more of the now version of me in it, out there surfacing in the world, too. Now I’m like, oh, got it. I can play along, too.

This tour has also been a full Y2K revival, which we love, with fans wearing butterfly clips everywhere, a nod to Metamorphosis. From that whole era, what’s one thing you’re thrilled is back, and one thing you’re glad to leave in the past?

I’m actually super glad low-rise jeans are back. I don’t think I could wear skin-tight low-rise jeans like I used to, but a baggy low-rise jean, I’m super into. And I kind of like that the fashion choices don’t always make sense. It has this air of, we don’t care and we’re cool.

I think some of my choices back then were a little too mismatched, and I’m happy to leave that in the past. But the pressure is gone, which is nice. Seeing kids dressed like that makes me so happy, because it takes me back, but I don’t actually want to be 17. I don’t even want to be 25.

Exactly. We’re taking the good stuff, with our new, evolved selves.

Yeah, I have PTSD about how many shawls I wore. I’m gonna have to find a shawl that doesn’t remind me of the ones I wore.

I was always so embarrassed that my mom bought me oversized suits and shirts when I was younger. But now it’s all back. It should be oversized, it should be baggy.

I know. Remember when baggy started happening again, and it was like, you have to have a tight top with a baggy bottom, or a tight bottom with a baggy top? Now it’s baggy on baggy. Let’s go. Let’s fucking go. Honestly, that was a big part of my show. I was like, I want baggy jeans, I want a baggy T-shirt. I want to feel how I feel when I come home after a long day. I want nothing to go in any crevice.

Metamorphosis was all about transformation. If the butterfly was that era’s symbol, what’s the symbol for this new, evolved era of yours?

Honestly, I think it’s the disco ball. She’s happy, she can party, but she can also be sad. When we were building the show, I wanted that disco ball to represent all the things. Sometimes she’s spinning really low and slow, and she’s sad girl, and sometimes she’s poppin’. Same thing with the confetti, if it works well, which it doesn’t every single night. Welcome to live shows. “Future Tripping” is just a little dusting of sad confetti coming down. But “What Dreams Are Made Of” is, we’re fucking giving the people what they want and we’re partying.

Speaking of the setlist, I want to talk about “The Math” for a second, because you added it at MSG. I listened to that song all the time growing up with my best friend Doug, and we would sing it at the top of our lungs. I have to wonder if any Gen Z fans today are confused about what *69 is. How did “The Math” end up back on the setlist?

“Why Not,” “Come Clean,” “So Yesterday,” all that shit’s easy. It’s the deeper cuts, where angsty 17-year-old me felt like, God, how do I relate to this? Or do I just do what everybody else is gonna do, which is have fun with it? I just need to tap into the younger self that feels really good singing this song. It’s not about applying it to who I am now and my ethos. Honestly, it was just so requested, that I was like, fuck it, let’s just do it. And actually, we’re doing “The Getaway” tonight, and I’m so excited.

Is there a song in your catalog that you were surprised didn’t have a bigger moment?

“Sparks,” for sure. And to be honest, “All About You.”

If you add that to any show, please let me know, because I’ll fly out immediately.

[Laughs] It’s weird, because one plus one doesn’t always equal two in the music industry. I have such crazy, loud, supportive fans who have always kept my boat afloat. So if you want to know the truth, I think all of them.

Justice for the whole catalog. And then there’s the new record. I don’t think it was luck that this record connected. You let us into a world we all assumed was perfect, the good girl from Disney, and your imperfect life lessons turned out to be a lot like ours. No skips for me, it’s pure pop perfection. Do you finally feel the respect now?

100%. Obviously, an artist wants to feel the clout. You want to impress the people who are not so easily impressed. And you get to a point where you’re like, “I don’t give a fuck,” and I think that’s the healthiest place to be as an artist, because you want to keep creating. But this time around, I was very rewarded and pleased with the reviews and the attention it got. My number one was how the fans felt about it and how they connect to it.

I feel so goddamn lucky. After such a long break, truly, when I’ve cried on stage, I mean it. It’s emotional, and it’s heavy, and it’s been scary and confusing and bold and raw and funny and happy. All of the emotions I can think of have been packed into that record and the building of this tour. It’s been met with a lot of warmth and love, and it does mean something to me.

Is there a lyric on this record that really defines how you feel right now, something only you could write now, but couldn’t have 10 or 20 years ago?

One of the songs that isn’t in the live show, that I’ll be excited to sing live one day, is “Tell Me That Won’t Happen.” I think it set the tone thematically for being so exposed and raw. “Roommates” and that song are tight friends for me. I had just had a baby, and it was really important to me that I didn’t make a record about being a mother, or about my family, but more about the feelings that ebb and flow through my womanhood. Some of the feelings you’re yearning for, that you miss, worrying that some of that carefree stuff is gone forever. Leaning on your people to reassure you and pull you out of a feeling. With “Roommates,” these are snapshots of real truths that didn’t last forever, but were really, really real at the time.

That brings me to the (Mine) EP. You first recorded “What Dreams Are Made Of” when you were 15, you re-recorded it this year for (Mine), and you sang it live for the first time ever on this tour, which is crazy to say. The lyrics are the same, but does singing it now take on a new meaning for you, more than 20 years after you first did it for Lizzie?

When I look back at that, I’m like, oh my god, I would love a redo. I think I was 14, maybe 15, shooting that movie. They have me for this amount of hours, it’s a rush, there’s a body double. All of it was just so crazy. I’m so glad it resonated with people this many years later, and that they loved it and ate it up. But when I perform it now, I’m like, oh, I’m in this. Back then, I just feel like I wasn’t in my body yet.

And I was pretty done with Lizzie at that time. I had filmed 30 episodes one year and 35 episodes the next. I turned into a huge star. Everyone called me Lizzie. And then I went to Italy to film that movie, and I think I was just like, I’m fucking done with you. I want people to see me. This isn’t fun anymore. So now when I sing it, it feels so much better, and I get to join the celebration of what it meant to people, and what it means to me now. I don’t want to sound ungrateful for doing it, but at the time, I was pretty exhausted by it. I was trying to create Hilary Duff separate from Lizzie, so that was right at the midway point where I was like, I’m never singing that song. And I didn’t even own it. It wasn’t my song to sing. But now I feel like it is.

Reclaiming it. And it’s so special hearing “What Dreams Are Made Of” and then “Adult Size Medium,” where my favorite lyric is about waking up to a dream sequence.

You just reminded me of something I love in “Adult Size Medium.” It’s the part, “Reminding me that nobody runs faster than time.” I feel like time is absolutely a thief. Even prepping for my first show, I was like, I can’t wait for this day to be over, get me to the other side. Toward the end of my eight-week U.S. tour, I was like, get me home. Then I’m home, and I miss it. Or my kids will do this funny thing I’m obsessed with, and all of a sudden they don’t do it anymore, and you’re like, where did that go? This year has gone by so fast. I just turned 39, and I’m like, my birthday was just here. I was just planning our Christmas trip, and now it’s basically Christmas again. Time is such a weird thing to process. Don’t you remember how long a year felt when you were a kid?

So long.

And now it just blows by. Whoa, we’re middle-aged, right?

I think we’re young, still!

I think we’re young in feeling, but we are middle-aged! [Laughs]

No… we’re mature.

Mature! Sometimes. [Smiles]

I don’t think everyone knows this, but your very first album was a holiday record, Santa Claus Lane. It came out before Metamorphosis, before “So Yesterday.” And now you’re dropping a holiday EP, Holiday Things. What sparked wanting to make a new holiday record so many years later?

I love Christmas. Right when luck… or something was coming out, I told Matt, “Can we make a holiday record? I want to make a holiday record.” He was like, “Can you calm down and let luck… or something come out? Calm the fuck down.” And I was like, okay, okay, okay. But promise me next year. And he said okay. I wanted to make something that felt luck… or something–adjacent for the holidays. I dream of the time of year when I can listen to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” but I also want something new. It’s a cute snapshot of all my feelings around the holidays. Some of it’s a little heavier, and some of it’s light and fun. I re-sing “Last Christmas,” which is exciting.

The (Mine) version. Amazing. I’m obsessed with “All You Want for Christmas Is Me.”

Do you love it?

It’s my new favorite holiday original! I’ve definitely told Arthur, “All you want for Christmas is me” on the holidays when we don’t get each other gifts. And I love the line, “The only snow angel you’ll need is me in our bedsheets.” That definitely wouldn’t have made it onto Santa Claus Lane.

It definitely wouldn’t. And I toyed with redoing “Santa Claus Lane,” and that’s one I couldn’t do. I can do “The Math,” I can do “The Getaway,” I can probably do a whole lot more than that. But I’m really struggling with “Girl Can Rock,” and really struggling with “Santa Claus Lane.” Those are two tough ones to recreate.

I’m sure your kids love some of those classics on Santa Claus Lane. What do your kids think of you as a pop star?

I don’t think they’ve heard that. Unless my assistant or nanny played it for them. If they do school pickup, they will play them my old music. And I’m like, what the fuck? Why am I being bullied in my own house? They love it. Not Luca, Luca’s too cool, but the girls are my number one fans. It’s really sweet.

Many mornings, on our Nanit baby monitor, I get woken up to Townes in her crib singing “Why Not.” Do people think I only play my kids my music? It’s also embarrassing. But they’re just really supportive. At the end of the night, they’re on the floor collecting all the dirty confetti, like, “Look how much we got!” I love how innocent it is, because in my mind I’m like, I could get you a fresh bag of that.

That’s so cute.

It’s really nice to have this moment and be doing this again, because there was a time when doing this was really lonely and really confusing. I just didn’t know who I was yet, or how to process any of it, or who was there for me. This is a totally different experience, because once I step off stage, my real life sets in. There’s so much strength in having that around me.

That was special for us to see, too, when Matt films your kids watching you during the shows. It shows us that whatever field we’re in, we can still do it. It’s not too late, there could be a new height to reach.

I struggle with how to put the words out there, because I’m not dumb. I know that everyone can’t go out there and be a pop star and have such a grand, public, loud life as I have, for whatever reason. That’s my reality. But I really do mean it to inspire people who feel stuck, or who haven’t done something they wanted to. I can’t tell you how many times I get stuck on random people’s Instagram or TikTok pages, moms who are starting a business. They’re a ceramicist and they’re doing their drops, and I’m signing up and trying to get their shit, and I’m just like, I’m proud of you. You become so consumed and lose your identity when you become a mom. Yes, you can put energy into yourself. You deserve it.

I crashed your step-and-repeat 12 years ago, and here we are. If we talk again 12 years from now, what do you hope we’re talking about?

Oh my gosh. Well, first of all, do you guys want kids?

Yeah, we do.

Okay, so I hope we’re talking about your kids, and I hope you can tell me cute stories about that. And I hope we can look back at this time and laugh, and feel like our toes are even more dug into the sand and our feet even more planted than they are now. I feel great where I am, but I can imagine 12 years from now being like, “Huh, that cute girl thought she had it all figured out.” And we definitely don’t. There’s so much knowledge that comes with years under your belt. I’m sure we’d laugh about who we are now, just like I get to giggle and send love back to the girl I was then.

What’s your next creative dream, something you think we’ll be talking about then?

Probably another movie or TV show. Everyone’s always asking, “What’s your favorite role you’ve ever played?” I know you want to hear me say A Cinderella Story or something of the sort. But I hope I haven’t done it yet.

Thank you, Hilary. This was a dream come true.

You’re so sweet, thank you. Hopefully it won’t be 12 years till we talk again, but if it is, we’ll get to have a good giggle about it.

<sub>Photography by: Anna Koblish
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