The two characters–Kelsey and Sophie–couldn’t be more different, and as Duff exclusively tells Parade.com, that was part of the appeal in making the decision to sign on for the Hulu series. “Kelsey really has her work life figured out, and her self-worth in the dating field is completely skewed,” Duff explains. “Sophie does not have her work life figured out. I’m not sure how she pays for that apartment, but she is dead set on finding true love, and really believes in that concept that her person is out there, that she is someone’s person, and she’s not letting go of that concept. It’s really sweet, and it’s really a breath of fresh air that Kelsey needed, you know?” We learn from Cattrall’s Sophie that the man who will eventually become the titular father is someone Sophie meets on the first episode of the series, which may make the story seem somewhat limited, but Duff says that executive producers IsaacAptaker and ElizabethBerger, who also work on This is Us, are geniuses at figuring out what could have happened, so it isn’t as clear cut as it sounds. “She met more than two guys that night, right?” notes Duff, who also shared that she doesn’t know who the father is. “She met Charlie (Tom Ainsley), she met Jesse (Chris Lowell), she met Sid (Suraj Sharma). She also met one other person that you’ll find out later. So, there’s a few cute ways that the writers have played with how she met other people that night. And it happens in flashbacks. That’s a little yanking from the original show, where we’re playing with past and present in flashbacks or flash-forwards.” Duff also spoke with us about the joy of having Cattrall as her older self, what happened with both the Younger spinoff and Lizzie McGuire, and the joy of going back to work when she was halfway through her second trimester. Keep reading for more of our exclusive interview with Hilary Duff.
What is it like having Kim Cattrall play an older you?
It’s so cool. When her name got tossed around, I was like, “Wait, are you serious? Is that an actual option?” Because I love her. When you think of New York City, you think of Kim, and that’s an important part of our show, just as it was in Younger. These people having all of these experiences, this doesn’t happen in L.A. This happens in New York, where you open your door and everything’s out there for you. You open your door and bump into someone and that could be a relationship. So, it’s really cool. And also, Sophie is a little frazzle-y. When she gets wound up, it’s just her being a little naïve and not having figured things out; and then you look at Kim, and she’s so together, and she’s so calm, but she’s funny, and witty, and competent. And you’re like, “Wow, Sophie figures it out.” I think that’s really comforting to people imagining who their older self would be and knowing that they figured it out. She’s in this lovely, futuristic home, drinking a glass of wine, telling her son this story of how she met his father. And he’s a little annoyed with her because maybe she’s had a little too much wine. It’s so cute. I want that moment with my son.
I’m dying to see the son! Although I also thought, “Well, maybe they can’t, because if he’s biracial, we’ll figure out which one of the guys is the dad.”
I’m sure that that’s going to be something at the very end of our run, that we’ll finally see him and that might give away a big token of information.
Sophie says she and her friends are still young enough to make bad choices. Do you think that’s true? You’re not much older than Sophie. Do you think that you’re still young enough to make bad choices?
I think, for me, it depends on which area of my life I’m making those choices in. Because I’m a parent of three now. It was just six o’clock in the morning the other day, and my husband [Matthew Koma] and I did not have a ton of sleep. We’re just navigating the morning routine, and he is like, “We’re adults. We have all this responsibility. We’re responsible for three human beings.” He was just saying it very matter of fact. I don’t know if he was talking out loud or talking to me, and I just started laughing. I’m like, “I know. How did we get here? How are we responsible enough to keep three humans alive and get them to school on time?” And they have after school things, and play dates, and we host things. It’s so adult that it depends on what part of my life I’m making bad choices in. But I think I’m still allowed some of them, not all of them. Sophie’s allowed bad choices in almost every facet of her life still. I’m not quite at that level, but I think that’s what makes going to work and playing that so much fun. It’s a breath of fresh air, a little bit of relief. When you have kids, your kids are your everything. I’m horrified when I drop Luca off at school, and it’s like free dress day but I sent him in his uniform. I feel such a failure, you know? And that’s just a little thing. That’s just a very, very little thing. But it’s nice to go to work, and be like, “Okay. Her eyes are just a little more innocent than mine. Everything for her’s a little lighter.” But for her, it feels like a big deal because she hasn’t taken those big steps in life yet where you’re procreating.
There had been talk about a Younger spinoff. Was that in the works, and when you got this, you said, “Oh no, the script is too good. I have to do this?"
Yes, it was talked about, but nothing was actively going. So, this script was so good that I couldn’t really say no to it. And toying with the idea of the Kelsey spinoff, it was like, “Oh, it’s not happening right now.” If anything, I would love a Younger movie. Molly Bernard, who plays Lauren on Younger, who’s one of my best friends in real life now was just with me for 15 days. She flew out here and we were like, “How fun would a movie be?” I think everyone would be on board for that. But I really think I am where I’m supposed to be right now, and that this was the project that I was supposed to do.
Where would we go in a Younger movie? Weren’t you happy with the series finale?
Well, at the ending of Younger, they set up that Kelsey was going to L.A. Darren [Star] kind of threw out that what she was going to L.A. for was not what she told everyone it was. There wasn’t really much for her in L.A., but she felt like she had to have a fresh start. So, I think, maybe something was going to begin for her there.
You said a few months back that Lizzie McGuire is definitely dead. Is that still the case? The network didn’t come back to you and say, “Well, we’re willing to negotiate on what you want for the character.”
I don’t know if I ever said that it was totally dead. I think that I posted something that it was not happening anymore, because it wasn’t. We were actively filming, and it stopped. So, it’s not dead and it’s not alive.
You’ve been really lucky you’ve been able to work during the pandemic. What has it been like? What has it taught you about yourself?
Gosh, it’s been a really wild experience. I really can’t complain because we’ve had everything we needed, and there’s so many people that have lost an unimaginable amount, and it’s really hard to really, really even think about that for someone’s life. That’s a whole different topic, but my husband and I just got married. So really, the first year of our marriage was a pandemic hit, and that was really kind of wild. I did get to work the second year. I started filming the last season of Younger in October, and I was pretty pregnant at that point. I remember getting a phone call from Darren, he was like, “We’re going to go. We are going to go, and we’re thinking maybe end of November.” And I was like, “Cool. So, no one knows this yet, but I’m with child and I’m pretty pregnant.” He was like, “Oh. Okay.” I was like, “The sooner, the better.” And so, that was actually really fun to get out of our house and fly to New York because we had been in here for a long time. And it was complicated and not that easy because I was actually getting to my third trimester by the time we started shooting, or midway through my second, I think. It was tough. But the pandemic taught me that when everything boils down, it’s about your family, and it’s about the ones you love—your family, your friends, or whoever you have chosen as that—that’s what’s important. And it was hard. It still continues to be hard, but I think it made everything that was important float to the surface and [makes you] realize that you’ll do anything for that, and that we’re all really strong. It’s weird to think about life like that. It’s weird to think about life going back to normal, what that normal is going to be like.
You started acting young. Did you ever imagine back then that all these years later, you would be No. 1 on the call sheet of your own series? Did you have that big dream?
I guess I didn’t know what a call sheet was. I didn’t know anything. I remember there was this project, Casper Meets Wendy, and I’m the star of the movie. It was a little made-for-TV movie. I just showed up, and they told me what to do, and I did it, you know? And there was this one moment where—I’m never going to forget this—I was running into the room, and I didn’t even have any lines in this one scene—I just had to open the door, and run through the house. And one of the cameramen said, “That was really great, but I want you to banana and then hug the couch on the way through the room." And I was like, “Okay.” I like did a banana on the floor, I didn’t do a straight shot, and I went over and I hugged the couch so meaningfully. And then stopped and ran through the rest of the room, and everyone laughed at me. And I was like, “What did I do? I don’t know what I did.” I didn’t know the terminology, just like I didn’t know about being No. 1 on a call sheet. And it was like, “No, no, no. Just get closer to the couch.” And I’m like, “Oh, okay.” Like, so embarrassed, I wanted to die. But I was just wide-eyed, and I never had any expectations of like, “I’m going to be the star.” I was just like, “Here are my lines. I’m going to say them.” I’m a kid. I think more after Lizzie McGuire happened and I was on a tour that I really realized, “Oh, I can carve out a career here. Everybody knows who I am.” It was really strange, really weird. And I think when I look back now, I’ve had a very long career. I’m 34, I started at 9, and I don’t think it’s so weird that I’m No. 1 on a call sheet, but I think sometimes I can’t believe I still have a seat at this table. How I Met Your Father begins streaming its first two episodes of Season 1 on Hulu on Tuesday, Jan. 17. Subsequent episodes will drop one per week on Tuesdays. Next, Haaaaaave You Met Dad? Everything We Know About the HIMYM Spinoff, How I Met Your Father—Including The First Trailer!
