Hilary Duff = Gay Icon? An Interview!

Hilary Duff rocks New York's Fashion Week. Lizzie Maguire in the house!

Hmmm... Okay, so maybe Hilary Duff isn’t considered a crazily beloved gay icon in the way that many of today’s pop music/movie star divas are. After all, so far she’s best known as a TV and movie star of kid-friendly fare like Lizzie Maguire and Cheaper By the Dozen, or super-girly flicks like Material Girls or A Cinderella Story. And her tunes from her debut solo album Metamorphosis were full-on pop, with the single “Come Clean” getting used as the theme song from the sudsy MTV reality drama Laguna Beach. But she’s got a new album coming on April 3rd, from which she’s released a first single “Play With Fire” (complete with a Kylie-esque video–and dance remixes, too) and now a second single, “With Love.” Her new tunes have a more raw, electro-pop, and decidedly dance-flavored feel... So is she trying to rope in the gays?

Why not ask her? Ms. Duff—who’s also a fragrance magnate and who oversees a thriving line of clothes for girls—was was at MTV recently taping an episode of TRL and doing some album promo stuff, and bizarrely, I snagged a few minutes for a quick interview with the star who’s worshipped by pre-teen girls (and who also snagged the affections of Aaron Carter and Good Charlotte’s Joel Madden). She sounded off on gay stuff, her music, the raucous antics of other nightclubbing young female celebs, Hillary Clinton vs. Hilary Swank, and why gothed-out Barneys sales clerks love her. And, she divulged that she may be performing at a certain snow-tinged bash out in Palm Springs this April.

Welcome to Duff Gardens, y’all!

Mizz Duff hosting TRL week before last.

So, your new music sounds more grown-up and intense. How did you come about putting your new sound together? It’s kind of pop meets electro, with a buzzy flavor...
It’s dancey!

Yeah... How did that all happen?
Making this record was just a totally new experience for me. I was part of the whole thing. I wrote the whole record, and I wanted to take my time and just find new sounds and find things. I didn’t want to be rock/pop anymore, and I wanted to be able to do a tour where I can dance and have a crazy show. So, there’s a couple of different artists who I love, and I like the sound of electro-pop, the dancey thing. And then we took some things which sounds a bit more ’80s, and some things sound kind of reggae-ish, and some songs are a little hip-hop. It’s all over the place and fun and experimental.

Hilary, backstage doing interviews at MTV. Heyyyyy...


Who do you listen to? Who are you into right now?
One band who’s sound I love is Bananarama. I like to dance to them, and they kind of inspired me. And I like The Faint, they have a really cool electro type sound. It’s raw and kind of weird; my stuff’s not weird but the music and the tempos kind of keep up, and I like that. But I listen to a ton of different stuff; I listen to The Cure, I love Morrissey, and Citizen Cope and Lily Allen. I’m all over the place. iTunes is gonna make me go broke, because I just get on there and am like, “Oh my God—do you remember this?” And I’ll buy the whole record.

Sure, you can get just sucked in to iTunes-land.
And why do they send the receipt to my Blackberry? I don’t get it. At 12 at night I’m getting a receipt from iTunes on my Blackberry. Why? It’s so inappropriate.

I know you were on The View recently, and I know you’ve been on Ellen—this is some kind of vague, gay segueway—and I know that you have gay people around you, like, people working with you and stuff. Are you aware of any specificially kind of gay fan base at all?
Yes... (she smiles) I actually have a really funny story. I was in Barneys, shopping. And there’s this kid who works there, who’s like, really young. And he looks like a hardcore kid, you know? And he was staring at me, and I was like, “Oh God. I’m probably about to get some rude comment. He probably hates me and thinks I suck.” Because he looked like a really hardcore kid, even though he works at Barneys. And he comes up to me and goes, “So, when am I going to get your new single???? I’m gay, and I love you, and I’m just so happy that you’re doing this dance music because I can go out and dance with my friends, and we’ll hear you in the clubs!” And I was just like, “Thank you so much! That’s awesome.” Recently people have been coming up to me, and I guess they’ve started listening to my music and liking it. And there’s this thing called The White Party that I think I’m going to perform at, which is really exciting.

Oh my... That’s crazy.
Yeah—I just hope they like my music. It’s for everyone, so...

Hilary gets slinky in the "Play With Fire" video.


Sure. And some of the recent music also has a kind of Kylie flavor to it, like the “Play With Fire” video... So maybe people are responding to those different influences. Now you’ve made movies, too. You were in Cheaper By the Dozen. Like, how many of those kids might actually turn out gay? There are a dozen kids, what are the odds?
I don’t know. Is there a statistic?

Supposedly, it’s one in ten.
Really, well... There’s 12 there, so—maybe one-and-a-half?!?

A big "With Love" fragrance display at Macy's. Ahhh, the smell of it...

You also have a fragrance out, called “With Love.” I saw the commercial/promo-video. I liked that you’re playing like a female James Bond type, with all the costume changes and the spy vibe. What's coming up for you movie-wise?
I just did a movie called War, Inc. [note: the movie’s name is now Brand Hauser: Stuff Happens] with John Cusack and Marisa Tomei and Ben Kingsley in Bulgaria. It was pretty crazy, and pretty different from me, the character that I played. It’s this oversexed Middle Eastern pop star who’s under the control of these really dirty sleazy guys who kind of make her be this type of person, and she does it and does it really well. Because she’s learned that’s how she can get what she wants. And it’s also like a safety thing, because it takes place in a made-up country called Turagistan, and John plays this undercover assassin. He looks like he’s producing this big convention there that’s going to brand Turagistan into America. There are bombs going off everywhere, but there’s a Dr. Scholl’s store, and a Gibson Amp & Guitar store going up everywhere. So it’s kind of crazy and it just shows how screwed up it is when we go into these places that aren’t supposed to look like or be America and try and make it that. It’s really funny, but it’s really creative and twisted, too. And it proves a point.

And you get to play a sleazy pop star. Cool.
I get to play someone totally opposite from who I am, so it’s fun. But the movie also shows that she’s not really that person, and she doesn’t want to be that.

Duff, back in the day with her musical ex-boyfriends, Aaron Carter (left) and Good Charlotte's Joel Madden


Well, you’ve done a good job not becoming that yourself, because at this point there are a lot of young celebrities who’ve become known for being out all night and drinking too much or not wearing underwear or whatever. How have you managed to keep it cool and maintain a level of decorum in your life?
I don’t know. I mean, I like to go out and have a good time with my friends, but I don’t think it’s anybody’s business. And there is a way to avoid the attention, because I do. I mean, people wait outside my house and take pictures and do this or that, and follow me around, and it’s kind of, to a certain extent, unavoidable. But I don’t do “interesting” things like they do, and if you stop doing stuff like that everyone is going to talk about, then they’re not going to get it out of you. So there’s nothing to write about. And some people like that. I mean, I have no judgment either way, but I guess that’s their thing. It’s not mine. And there’s a way to avoid it. And a way to ask for it.

Yeah, I just wanna say to those people like, “Use your head, already!”
But maybe they don’t mind... But I would mind.

Finally, Hillary Clinton or Hilary Swank? Who’s your favorite other Hilary?
I would have to say Hilary Swank, because I’ve met her, and she’s just really sweet and really talented. I don’t much about Hillary Clinton—I mean I know a little bit about her—but I’d have to say Hilary Swank. And I think we spell our names the same way. Right? So I gotta go for her.

See ya! Love ya!

Comments

[Terrell]

OMG thats awesome that Hilarys more involved and thought of in the community. Ive liked her since Metamorphosis, but I love her new tunes and am buying her Dignity album!

[Justin]

Wow, I like her a lot more after reading this! I guess I gotta buy here next album.

[kyle]

OMG!!! i love her soooo much.....and her new album Dignity ROCKS!!!!