Hilary Duff's known for quite a few things at this point — but it all started with the Disney Channel classic show Lizzie McGuire.
Obviously, a show like Lizzie McGuire stays with you to some extent through your entire career — and in an interview with Bustle, Duff revealed how that experience has been over the years.
“I was too young to do a character dive on Lizzie,” she said while talking about the similarities between her and the character. “I think I was just playing myself. And I really related to that girl. She was me, and I was her, and that was that.”
Duff also admitted that she "still" feels pigeonholed by the character, especially since people have mentioned her constantly for Duff's entire career.
“I was like, ‘I’m me! I’m Hilary, not that person. That’s a made-up person.’ It was a desire to be seen as a person outside of a character. By the time I was 18, I was like, ‘If I hear that name one more time!’
"The lines get so blurry between me and her, and I think they are for the world, still," Duff continued. "And they probably always will be. I think just accepting that has brought me a lot of peace.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t have a backbone, and I don’t have a drive, and I don’t have a vision. I have all of those things.”
“Now I’m like, ‘I love her.’ She’s the greatest. She made everyone feel good.”
Indeed. If you want to keep watching Duff make people feel good on TV, catch her on How I Met Your Father on Hulu. Here's the trailer.