Hey Now, These Lizzie McGuire Secrets Are What Dreams Are Made Of

Knowing that someone's wrong for you doesn't change the way you feel. And knowing that this was what would have happened in the Lizzie McGuire reboot only makes us feel worse.

Because years after the series was canceled before it even took off, we have finally been told the NSFW plot that would have unfolded for Hilary Duff's titular character.

Now in her 30s and living in NYC, "Lizzie's been working and living there as an interior designer, and she's dating this very, very handsome chef," writer Jonathan Hurwitz explained in a recent TikTok. "And she ends up finding that he's been cheating on her with her best friend." 

And while it's not her childhood BFF Miranda (Lalaine), she still decides to return home to California, where she reunites with her animated self and Gordo (Adam Lamberg), who she finally kissed at the end of 2003's The Lizzie McGuire Movie.

In episode two, Jonathan explained, "Gordo reveals that he is engaged, engaged to a woman, and she's pregnant and they're really happy. So no, in this version, Lizzie and Gordo would not have ended up together."

Now enter her childhood crush Ethan Craft (Clayton Snyder). In the following episode, which was never filmed, "Lizzie wakes up in Ethan's bed in his water polo T-shirt," Jonathan revealed. "And animated Lizzie pops up, and she has this little checklist—like a to-do list. And Ethan is on the list, and she checks it off. And I think she says something like, 'Well, checked that box.' Dramatic pause. 'Twice.'"

Have you ever seen such a beautiful night plot twist? So while we mourn what almost was, let's take a trip down memory lane and relive what we did get with these 21 secrets from the original series...

1. The show's original title was What's Lizzie Thinking? And when it was initially pitched to Disney, it didn't have the now-infamous animated Lizzie voiceover, but just a standard voiceover from star Hilary Duff. 

2. Some of the other actresses who went out for the role of Lizzie included Lindsay Lohan (Duff's future rival thanks to their love triangle with Aaron Carter), Sarah Paxton and Hailee Hirsh. Though Duff emerged as the winner, producer Stan Rogow once told E! News that all their options were "terrific" and had them "excited about presenting to the network as [options for Lizzie]."

3. In an interview with E! News, Duff confessed she did "a terrible job" in her audition: "I hadn't read my lines." Close to quitting acting before landing her breakout role, she didn't take the audition too seriously, but the show's creator Terri Minsky saw potential in the young actress and reached out to her.

"I was very honest about it and said, 'You need to get more in the character,'" Minsky recounted to E!. "Because I knew there was so much [talent] there."

4. One of the reasons Duff may have ultimately landed the job was her sense of style, with Disney's former president of entertainment Rich Ross telling Newsweek, "When we were casting Lizzie McGuire we called her in four times. She wasn't doing anything wrong. She just wore such great outfits, and we wanted to see what she'd come in with next." Duff later revealed she used her clothes as a way to make herself stand out from the hundreds of others auditioning. 

5. A reminder that Lizzie aired on Disney Channel: The network initially pushed back when the writers wanted to do an episode about Lizzie buying her first bra. Network executives "said, 'Oh my god, you can't do that!'" Rogow recalled to E!. "It was little bit groundbreaking at the time."

6. Of course, that's one of the most memorable episodes for Duff. "I definitely think that the bra episode is one that stands out in my brain as being, like, first of all, really wanting it, 'cause I thought a bra was cool," she told TODAY, "and then second of all, being like, 'How am I gonna get that? I have to talk to my parents about that. That's gonna be the worst thing ever.'"

7. While he became Lizzie's longtime crush, Ethan (Clayton Snyder) was initially conceived as your typical middle school jock. In fact, writer Nina Bargiel once revealed Danny Kessler (played by Byron Fox) was supposed to be The Guy. 

"There was another dreamy boy that she was supposed to be interested in, but I think he wasn't available," she told the Feminist Disney Tumblr account. "So we needed someone new and Ethan was already there, so we just built him up." 

8. But while Lizzie was pining for Ethan, Adam Lamberg's Gordo (one of the best Disney Channel boys EVER, don't @ us) was secretly crushing on his BFF. And after two seasons and one movie, fans finally got to see the two kiss, with the ending hinting that the best friends had become a couple.

"We knew fans wanted Lizzie and Gordo to get together," Bargiel said. "It was pretty clear by then that this was going to be the end of the Lizzie McGuire train, so we wanted to make sure that you got a good last stop."

While new episodes aired after the movie's release, the film's ending is canonically Lizzie's last hurrah.

9. In an interview with MTV, Snyder revealed he actually took the longest in hair and makeup out of anyone in the cast, all to achieve Ethan's signature flowing locks. "I had a curly fro, clown mop of hair off set, and I took longer than the girls did in hair and makeup to get that thing as luscious and straight as it was," he said. "They just destroyed it with product and hairspray and straightening iron and more product."

10. After Lizzie and her friends graduated middle school, the plan was for Lizzie McGuire to head over to ABC for the group's high school adventures in a primetime sitcom, and to film a sequel to the hit movie. However, heated contract negotiations caused Disney and Duff to part ways. 

"We very much wanted to continue the Lizzie franchise," Disney Studios' then-production chief Nina Jacobson told Entertainment Weekly at the time. "But every deal has its tipping point, the point at which it no longer makes sense. Unfortunately, that's the point we reached in the Lizzie negotiations, and we ultimately had to say goodbye."

11. However, Duff's mom and then-manager Susan Duff spoke out in a tell-all interview with EW, saying, "Disney thought they'd be able to bully us into accepting whatever offer they wanted to make, and they couldn't. We walked away from a sequel. They walked away from a franchise. We weren't feeling the love...they weren't giving Hilary the respect she deserved."

Duff's lawyer also weighed in on behalf of the teen star, issuing the following statement to The Los Angeles Times: "Disney's strong-armed tactics and failure to pay our client a fee commensurate with offers received from other studios and networks caused the breakdown of negotiations with the Duffs. While the Lizzie McGuire franchise may be over for Disney, Hilary Duff's career is flourishing."

12. After Lizzie's abrupt end, producers developed a pilot centering on Stevie, Miranda's outsider of a little sister, played by Selena Gomez.

Like Lizzie, Stevie's internal thoughts would also be voiced by an animated alter ego. It was one of two pilots pitched to the Disney Channel that year, with the network ultimately deciding not to move forward with the Gomez-vehicle in favor of the other one: Hannah Montana. Gomez would go on to land the lead role in The Wizards of Waverly Place, which became her breakout performance. 

13. At the height of its popularity, Lizzie McGuire was bringing in an estimated $100 million on merchandise alone, including clothing, a book series, soundtracks and more. It was the Disney Channel's highest rated and most successful series at the time, averaging 2 million viewers per episode and once aired seven days a week (with ABC also airing it on Saturday mornings).

14. After years of rumors and whispers, Disney+ officially announced they would be reviving Lizzie McGuire in August 2019, with Duff reprising her iconic role and the show's creator overseeing the streaming series, which would focus on a 30-year-old Lizzie navigating life in New York City. 

15. While casting was initially kept under wraps, a photo from the first table read revealed the original McGuire family would be back in action, with Hallie Todd, Robert Carradine and Jake Thomas all returning as Lizzie's parents and troublemaker little brother Matt.

16. But bad news Lizzie and Gordo shippers: They would not dating...at least not when the revival starts as Lizzie is engaged to someone else, though Lamberg was slated to reprise his role. "I feel like them not being together is what was so good...it's that one person that you're like, 'Was he the one? Is it ever going to be?'" Duff told Vulture. "You're always kind of wondering. We wanted it to hurt everyone a little bit, and it'll continue to hurt."

17. Unfortunately, the series never came to fruition, with Duff confirming the sad news in December 2020 after Minsky left over creative differences.

"I know the efforts and conversations have been everywhere trying to make a reboot work but, sadly & despite everyone's best efforts, it isn't going to happen," Duff explained, following her public plea that Disney+ move the show to Hulu. "We can all take a moment to mourn the amazing woman she would have been and the adventures we would have taken with her. I'm very sad, but I promise everyone tried their best and the stars just didn't align. Hey now, this is what 2020's made of." 

18. A celeb fan of Lizzie McGuire? Cardi B, who revealed just how much the movie resonated with her during Vogue's Forces of Fashion conference.

"Has anyone seen that Hilary Duff movie [The Lizzie McGuire Movie]? There's a song in it that anytime I go to an event that I've always wanted to go to I always play it in my head," she said, talking about being invited to Paris Fashion Week. "It goes, 'Hey now, hey now, this is what dreams are made of.' That's how I feel every single time that I get invited to these fashion events."

19. Speaking of the film, The Lizzie McGuire Movie became a surprise hit when it was released in May 2003, debuting at No. 2 at the box office behind X2: X-Men United and going on to gross over $50 million.

20. Many fans were upset that Miranda was not in the movie and was M.I.A. in some of the last episodes of the show, with her family going on an extended vacation. But that was actually because Lalaine wanted to focus on her music career.

21. After becoming a teen idol thanks to her time as Lizzie, many fans were surprised when Duff chose to take a break from acting.

"Everyone thought I was just absolutely nuts because I was really successful and making a lot of money," she said in a 2015 interview with PrideSource. "And it was scary, because there was no guarantee that my career was still gonna be there. I really needed it personally. I grew up in the spotlight and on tour and with everyone just knowing me and knowing me a certain way. At some point I was like, 'I don't even know if I'm that person anymore, and I don't even have the time to figure that out.'"

She admitted that she found being known as Lizzie "torturous" at times. "I loved it during the filming," she explained. "I just didn't know what a success the show was gonna be, and after that...I was still Lizzie McGuire to people and that was super annoying. Now it's not. I don't care now."

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