Jen Clay
Staff writer
Hilary Duff is sick. While the print journalists sitting in the hospitality suite at the Four Seasons Hotel can’t pinpoint her malady, we can guess from her soft sniffles that the always-busy pop starlet is recovering from a particularly nasty cold. We know what that’s like, Hil.
But do we … really? After breaking into feature films with the 2003 release of “The Lizzie McGuire Movie,” Duff has been on the move, conquering the worlds of television, movies, music and Target products. Within the next week alone, Duff will release her self-titled second album, promote yet another film and celebrate her 17th birthday. And then she’ll hold a month-long concert tour of Hawaii, Australia and Japan.
With that kind of schedule, Duff leaves all of us wondering when exactly she sleeps, if she ever does. Luckily, a Saturday press junket for Duff’s new film “Raise Your Voice” seemed the perfect opportunity to ask the actress turned singer/pop star.
A voracious talker, who within two minutes betrays a particular fondness for the popular phrase “you know?,” Duff comes off obliging, bright, and just a little bit tired.
While her 300-pound bodyguard (known as Troy in Duff circles) stands by and directs the number of questions his employer has time for, the pop star-actress gives us the goods on the movie and its leading man, her gut reaction to the Duff empire and her preferred alternative to the popstar-must spa day.
In “Raise Your Voice,” Duff plays Terri Fletcher, a small-town Arizona girl who dreams of attending summer music camp at the fictitious Bristol-Hillman conservatory in Los Angeles.
After her brother’s untimely death, Terri’s aunt Rita (Rebecca de Mornay) hatches a deceptive plan to bypass Terri’s overprotective father (David Keith) and get her singing-songwriting niece to music camp. But when Terri finally gets there, will she be able to regain her voice after the loss of her brother? (She has a song on the film’s soundtrack, so feel free to decide for yourself.)
Duff says she was drawn to the film and her character because of Terri’s firm resolve in the face of adversity. However, Duff said she can’t relate to Terri’s overprotective father.
“My parents, no matter if it was gymnastics or soccer, acting or singing, they’ve always been, like, 100 percent supportive,” she said.
“My dad is definitely nothing like David Keith in the movie. Of course, he’s a little bit strict with us just because we’re his girls [Duff has an older sister, Haylie], but my mom would definitely handle that,” she said.
But Duff, who says her entire family has worked for her success, understandably found herself alone while filming the movie’s more tender scenes with on-screen beau Oliver James, whom she wanted for the role after seeing the British actor in “What a Girl Wants.”
While her kiss with James wasn’t her first foray into on-camera necking, she says it was still awkward, perhaps all the more so because of a time crunch on that day of shooting.
“We had seven minutes to do this scene. And so everyone’s running around, like crazy people, like ‘oh my god, we gotta blah blah blah,’ and I’m sitting there, like, a little bit nervous because I got to kiss this guy that I kind of just met, and all these people are going to be watching, and he’s probably a little bit nervous too. But it was OK. It was very professional.”
“Raise Your Voice” wasn’t all uncomfortable ground for Duff. Described by director Sean McNamara as a kind of modern-day “Fame,” the film relies heavily on a colorful soundtrack, which includes tracks from Keane and 3 Days Grace, as well as musical performances from Duff.
In addition to its inclusion in the film, Duff’s single “Fly” will also see release on her new album, the follow-up to her 4.8 million-selling “Metamorphosis” disc.
With movies, music and her own brand of hair gel under her belt, Duff responds to questions about her multi-million dollar moguldom with a drawn-out “Ewwwww.” She says her family doesn’t talk about the Duff brand at home.
“We don’t talk about how I have a clothing line that’s doing this or my tours doing this or my movie comes out …” she said. “You know, it only seems weird when people talk about it. You know what I mean?”
Duff, who has also completed filming her next role in “The Perfect Man” with Heather Locklear, says in a few films’ time she will take on a “kind of bad girl” character in an action-oriented flick. But even though Duff’s lined-up projects mean she’ll have little down time in her foreseeable future, there’s one thing she says she doesn’t enjoy spending precious off-time doing.
“You know what’s funny? Everyone’s like ‘Oh my God, I want to go get a massage or a facial,’ and I’m not into that kind of stuff,” she said. “I mean it’s important to get facials just for your skin because I always have makeup on and stuff, but that’s not relaxing to me. I’m checking my watch, ‘When can I be done? When can I go see my friends?’”
She continues, “I’m young and feel like if I’m not working and I’m at home, I want to be, like, driving in my car, or going shopping or, you know, hanging out with my friends and being normal.”
And so we finally get to ask, does her quest for normalcy mean she gets the standard amount of sleep for her age group? She says yes, but offers one pseudo-caveat for her crazy schedule.
“If I want to do it all, I’m going to have to put in the work, and I’m willing to do that, you know?”
Why, yes Hilary, we’ve noticed.
“Raise Your Voice” opens in theatres Oct. 8.
10-07-2004
