As Lizzie McGuire, Hilary Duff played the girl every 1990s pre-teen wanted to be. Now she’s back on screens playing another relatable millennial woman in How I Met Your Father. As filming begins for season two, she shares the gruelling garage workouts that built her body – and the inner work that built her mind
says Hilary Duff’s three-year old daughter, Banks, her finger tapping her mouth. ‘Can I have a treat?’ The child tilts her blonde head to one side as her mother looks upon her with amusement. ‘Did you eat any vegetables for lunch?’ Hilary asks. Banks says yes, though her mother suspects otherwise. But who can deny a little indulgence in the face of such ingenuity?
Banks scampers out of view on Zoom and Hilary, left alone in her bright and airy bedroom, shakes her head affectionately. At 34 years old, she’s the mother of three children. Besides Banks, she has son Luca, 10, from her previous marriage to retired hockey player Mike Comrie, and daughter Mae, one. When Mae was born, the baby took over her office, so Hilary’s bedroom is her last sanctuary. She worries her days in this house are numbered – her family, which also includes musician husband Matthew Koma, three dogs (including a 60kg St Bernard) and seven chickens, has outgrown it. ‘We’re busting at the seams here,’ she says. ‘You should see my garage. It’s stroller and car-seat city, scooters everywhere.’ But this is the house where she recovered from her 2016 divorce, where she learned to parent Luca as a single mother, where she eventually wed Koma on the front lawn, and where they brought their girls home from the hospital. It’s hard to leave a place that’s held such joy.
Hilary’s appeal as an actress has always been her easy familiarity. As a child star on Lizzie McGuire, she was the quintessential everygirl, as warm as she was vulnerable. After years of being identified with the character, and multiple passes on offers to reboot her, she agreed to revisit Lizzie in a series for Disney+. The project tanked when Hilary and the network differed on their vision for adult Lizzie. ‘She had to be 30 years old doing 30-year-old things,’ Hilary says she insisted, pushing for a more mature Lizzie. ‘She didn’t need to be doing bong rips and having one-night stands all the time, but it had to be authentic. I think they got spooked.’
Standing her ground meant the project fizzled, which cleared the path for How I Met Your Father. You could see how her c
