Hilary Duff Says Getting Fired at Age 11 Led to Her Getting Cast as Lizzie McGuire

Hilary Duff landed the role of a lifetime — but only because she got fired first.

Duff, 38, opened up about her career in a new interview for Variety. The actress is gearing up to release a new album, her first since 2015’s Breathe In. Breathe Out. and reflected on how her early music was shaped.

Duff’s journey into music intersected with her casting as the title middle schooler in Disney’s Lizzie McGuire, which premiered in 2001. Her music debut came on the soundtrack to the series, 2002’s Lizzie McGuire, She released her first album, Metamorphosis in 2003, the same year The Lizzie McGuire Movie was released, which featured her songs “Why Not” and “What Dreams Are Made of.”

Talking to Variety about “Why Not,” Duff reflected on how she got cast as Lizzie. “The audition for the TV show was crazy. I had decided that I wanted to go back to Texas and be a ‘normal kid,’ ” she explained.

She was particularly upset after she’d lost an early job. “I had just gotten replaced off of a TV show because they replaced me with twins, so they could work longer hours,” she said. “And I remember being like, ‘I got fired. 11 years old and I got fired from a job.’ It was like absolutely devastating.”

But before Duff left Hollywood, “My manager called my mom and was like, ‘Disney wants to see Hilary for this thing.’ ”

Duff, dejected, wasn’t interested in giving the Lizzie McGuire audition her all. “I walked in and I was super unprepared. It was like a monologue.” Duff will “never forget” that the casting director Robin Lippin called her out. “She was like, ‘You’re not very prepared for this.’ ” Duff was embarrassed, but, she said, “I always kind of love a challenge.”

The casting director asked, “‘Can you go be better prepared and come back tomorrow?’ And I was like ‘Yes I can.’ ”

Duff wasn’t going to mess up again. “I came back the next day and I was completely off book. And I had it down and I actually loved the sides,” she said. She went to multiple rounds of auditions — including one where they asked her for her special talent. She walked around on her hands, remembering, “I think I was trying to shock everybody.” Once she got the job, her gymnastics past “came in handy,” since Lizzie often showed off her own acrobatic skills.

Lizzie McGuire helped make Disney Channel a destination for preteens, but the series ended in 2004. She continued to act in films, including Agent Cody Banks, Cheaper by the Dozen and A Cinderella Story, but also continued to release music, with 2004’s Hilary Duff and 2007’s Dignity. After pausing her music career, she continued to act, with starring roles on Younger and How I Met Your Father.

Looking back at her early music career, she told Variety, “I think it was a combination of not entirely knowing what I was doing and also being thrilled to be a pop star.” She took ‘voice lessons’ from a young age, but didn’t think of herself as a “singer.” She was eventually inspired by Britney Spears. 

“I was like, well I’m also gonna be a pop star, so watch this,” she joked. 

Duff released her first single in over a decade, “Mature,” earlier this month, and her album, luck…or something will be released in February 2026. In a statement, she explained, “I am often asked how I still have my head on straight after growing up in this industry. The album title is my way of answering that question.”

Duff told Variety she’s particularly excited to reconnect with her old music catalogue during her upcoming mini tour. “For the first time in a really long time, like 15 years maybe, I feel so excited to sing my old songs again,” she said. She said doing the songs her way will “be a really lovely victory lap.”