Younger Star Provides Update on Spin-Off Series

Last May, news broke that after seven seasons on TV Land, Younger may be getting a spinoff, with Lizzie McGuire‘s Hilary Duff in the lead role. According to a new report, TV Land owner ViacomCBS is working with series creator Darren Star to build the spinoff, which could end up at Paramount Network or could be shopped around. There were rumors a while back that Younger itself might leave TV Land for Paramount Network, so that marriage could make sense…although those rumors fizzled, so make of that what you will. The parent series, based on the novel by Pamela Redmond Satran, stars Sutton Foster, Debi Mazar, Miriam Shor, and Nico Tortorella.

Younger is mainly set in New York City, and chronicles the personal and professional life of Liza Miller, a divorced 40-year-old woman with a teenage daughter and a failed marriage that collapsed due to her former husband’s gambling addiction. After a 26-years-old tattoo artist named Josh mistakenly thinks that he and Liza are about the same age, she concocts a plan to pass herself off as a 20-something to re-enter the ageist industry of publishing. The potential spinoff would have seen Liza, now closer to 40 than to 20 herself.

“It’s on hold for now,” Duff told Cosmopolitan. “I think I’d be more excited to do a movie for Younger. I think Darren Star, the creator of Younger, is really busy with Emily in Paris, but I know we hold a special place.”

In the series, Duff plays Kelsey Peters, a 26-year-old book editor at Empirical Press who befriends Liza after they start working together.

The idea of Duff headlining a comedy with a dramatic edge, set in New York, is not entirely a new one. Elements of that were to find their way into Disney+’s planned revival of Lizzie McGuire, which is in limbo following the departure of the showrunner, series creator Terri Minsky. Both fans, and later Duff, expressed frustration with the move, which led in part to the series being delayed.

“We paused production on Lizzie McGuire a few weeks ago to allow time for some creative re-development,” said a Disney spokesperson at the time. “Our goal is to resume production and to tell an authentic story that connects to the millions who are emotionally invested in the character, and a new generation of viewers too.”

That series still hangs over Duff’s head, and she admitted in that same Cosmopolitan interview that she hopes they can eventually find a way to release the two episodes that did get made before the series fell apart. 

For now, she’s back on screens in How I Met Your Father, the buzzy new spinoff of How I Met Your Mother. You can see the first two episodes of that on Hulu.