Hilary Duff News
Hilary Duff comes of age with new album
Sunday, 6 May 2007
There are actors who sing and singers who act, but throughout pop history few
entertainers have successfully balanced those twin careers.
Neither could Hilary Duff, though not due to lack of effort. While her career as
a pop diva skyrocketed — she released two platinum albums and a best-selling
greatest-hits disc in just three years — the former Disney child star found her
acting career stalling. Despite her considerable star wattage, Hollywood had
difficulty seeing Duff beyond her past sugary sweet roles and good girl persona
(no rehab or pantyless partying here).
"It always shocks me the lack of openness, the lack of imagination that some
casting directors have," Duff, 19, says in her girlish voice, sitting in a back
corner of one of her favorite restaurant haunts, brunette hair peeking out of a
black suede cap.
"I would read a script and be so in love with that, and someone would be like,
'Hilary Duff? Oh no, we don't want her for that.'"
As bad scripts and rejections kept coming, Duff decided to stop the balancing
act and put 100 percent into her music career.
Working again with songwriter Kara DioGuardi, she plunged into recording
"Dignity," which was released this week. It's a club-oriented record filled with
pulsating grooves, but also tackles some of the more serious issues she's faced
since her last record, including a breakup with Good Charlotte's Joel Madden and
her parents' split.
"Every experience that I had for the last two years, they were certain things
that made me want to write about in song," says Duff, who co-wrote all but one
song on the disc — the first time she has written so extensively for a CD. "I
really got to have fun. It's a new side of me and part of me. All the songs are
so self-explanatory. It was very liberating — writing it is like a therapy
session."
"She was very honest about where she was in her life, and very open, which made
it very easy to collaborate," says DioGuardi. "I think she's really become an
adult on this record. She's a young adult, in the way that she feels, in the way
that she acts, in the way that she interprets what she's singing about."
While recording "Dignity," Duff was in transition, in both her personal life and
her professional one. One of the bigger jolts was the end of her romance with
rocker Madden. Though the pair first raised eyebrows because of their seven-year
age difference — he was in his 20s and she was under 18 when they first started
dating — they seemed like a solid couple, and he even worked on her greatest
hits disc, providing an edgier sound then the bouncy pop that had become her
signature.
But Duff says she broke it off last year when she had a feeling that "this isn't
right anymore. I didn't know how to trust that feeling but I knew I had it."
Duff still speaks warmly of Madden ("I will always love him, he was a wonderful
person") and admits it was hard to see him move on so quickly to his current
flame, tabloid magnet Nicole Richie. But Duff says she's happy being single.
"I want to be alone — I wouldn't imagine dating someone," she says. "It was
hard, it is painful, I still get really sad, but I feel empowered."
She went through another tough breakup, though not her own: the dissolution of
her parents' marriage. Though Duff doesn't go into details, she admits the song
"Gypsy Woman" was in part inspired by the family drama.
"It's about a woman who breaks up a family. It's weird, because you feel like
it's a cover-up — were they happy?" Duff asks of her parents' marriage.
Talking to friends about your crises is one thing; putting it on a record for
the world to hear is another. At first, it was hard for Duff, who admits to
growing up "cautious," wary of putting her public life on display. But
eventually, Duff decided to channel her feelings on "Dignity": "'What am I
hiding for?'" she asked herself. "I think it's easier to open yourself up
through music."
While Duff was able to express different emotions on record, she found it
difficult in her acting career, mainly because most of the offered roles kept
her in "Lizzie McGuire" mode, with fluffy, family friendly films like "Cheaper
by the Dozen."
"I really didn't want to do that," says Duff, still frustrated at the thought.
"I wanted to challenge myself and do something unexpected, and also wanted to be
excited about it."
She even began to doubt her acting skills. "'Nobody thinks I'm good, nobody
thinks I can do anything different,'" she recalls thinking. "I felt kind of in a
weird place. That's when I started making my records."
It wasn't until she was a month deep into recording "Dignity" and totally
focused on her recording career that a film project stirred her interest: "War,
Inc.," written by John Cusack, who also stars in it. It was Cusack who sought
Duff out, but she almost passed — he wanted her to play a pop singer.
"But then once he talked to me on the phone ... (and) after I read it, I had to
do it," she says of the part, an oversexed eastern European superstar.
She took a break from recording her album to shoot the movie in Bulgaria; she
describes the shoot as a "life-changing experience."
"Going up there, I was a little intimidated and scared. It really just reassured
me. It kind of brought back the passion I knew I had," she says of the movie,
which does not have a release date yet.
Duff brought back that passion when she went back to work on "Dignity."
DioGuardi, who has worked with Duff since her first record, says she's noticed a
change in the performer over the past year.
"She's definitely now in my opinion has a more active role in her career, and
she's still the same sweet compassionate girl that she is," DioGuardi says. "I
think she's just taking more control of her life."
She also gained more confidence — enough to again tackle those twin career
goals.
"Before, I definitely considered myself more of a singer. I think definitely
since I did the movie I was like, 'I'm an actress.'"