HOLLYWOOD -- She may be living a fairy-tale existence, but Hilary Duff is no Cinderella.

"I have a great supportive family and many friends. I work because I love it, not because someone is forcing me to -- so I'm no Cinderella," says Duff.

Her fairy-tale life is another matter completely.

"I know it sounds cheesy, but my life is kind of like a fairy tale.

"I'm this little 16-year-old girl from Houston, Texas, and look at all the great stuff I have and all the great things I get to do."

She admits she owes much of this success story to her TV alter ego, Lizzie McGuire.

"That character really connected with people. It made it possible for me to pursue both a music career and an acting career."

A teen life in the fast lane can be a precarious affair as Mary Kate Olsen demonstrated recently when she admitted suffering from anorexia.

Duff empathizes with Olsen and others who have suffered drug, alcohol and sexual addictions as a result of their youthful celebrity.

"It's the pressures put on young celebrities," says Duff.

"You open a magazine and it's all about someone being too skinny or too fat, no longer pretty, having the wrong hair colour or not making it into the most recent popularity poll."

Duff says she doesn't "pretend to know what Mary Kate is going through, but I can understand a bit of it on a certain level.

"As a young celebrity, there are times when you feel your life is being controlled by so many other things that eating is the last thing you really do have some control over."

However, Duff insists anorexia is not in her cards.

"I love food too much. I eat sensibly, but I do love to eat.

"When I was in Toronto recently filming Raise Your Voice with Rita Wilson and John Corbett, my mother (Susan Duff) cooked all my evening meals for me.

"We'd eat our supper in front of the TV set watching Fear Factor. People were eating all these horrible bugs and things and it still didn't turn me off my food."

On Friday, Duff stars in A Cinderella Story, a contemporary take on the famous fairy tale.

"Disney's animated Cinderella was my favourite video growing up. I wore it out, so when the chance to play a modern Cinderella came up, I was very excited."

Duff plays Sam, a girl whose stepmother and stepsisters are as cruel as those in the fairy tale, but Sam is no doormat.

"In most Cinderella stories, the girl is so passive. She doesn't fight for herself. She waits for things to fall into place for her.

"Sam is far more independent, strong and sensible. She may not be the prettiest girl in school and people ignore her, but she is determined to succeed. She's a fighter.

"The fact she gets the guy in the end is a perk, not her goal."

Duff's prince charming is Chad Michael Murray of TV's One Tree Hill.

After much ado about everything, Duff and Murray get to kiss in a football stadium during the crucial football playoffs.

"It was a great kiss, but very awkward," recalls Duff.

"There were 270 extras and crew members watching us and we shot it on the third day of filming, so Chad and I had only worked one day together.

"We're really close friends now, but it's always awkward doing something as personal as kissing when you don't really know each other."

After being pushed a little more, Duff admits "we did talk about it and practise a little before we went on set, but it was still awkward.

"I think it really works for the film because that's how the characters are feeling, too."

Duff recently had a real Cinderella moment.

Because she is home-schooled, Duff didn't get to go to a junior high school prom or her own high school prom.

"I kept saying how much I missed not having a prom, so all my best friends and I threw our own impromptu one.

"Dan Byrd, who plays my best friend Carter in A Cinderella Story, turned 18, so he got his own apartment. We bugged him to throw an '80s prom night before his furniture arrived."

Duff says everyone went out to thrift stores and bought vintage clothes for the event.

"My dress cost $50 and it was sequined white and black and I had plastic pumps and my hair was really bouffant.

"We decorated the apartment with streamers and everything. My mom made finger food and we had this big punch bowl and there was a photographer and everything. There were about 50 people."

Though Sam in A Cinderella Story does not sing, Duff recorded original songs for the soundtrack album.

"I didn't want Sam to break out into song in the diner or in her room. I get to sing in The Perfect Man, the movie I'm filming now with Heather Locklear.

"I don't want to sing in all my movies. I'm not even that interested in doing a big movie musical.

"I love my music and my acting in different ways and would like to keep them as separate as possible.

"I think I get a little more satisfaction these days from singing because it gives me immediate feedback, but I feel really connected to acting because it was the first thing I started doing."

Duff says singing is more personal.

"I get to express my feelings more. I don't write all my songs, but I have input into everything I sing. I have more control over my singing career than I do my acting career."

She also loves it when her fans react to her songs at a concert.

"There is nothing more exciting than having thousands of people at a sold-out concert singing along with you because they know every word in your song and waving their homemade signs and banners.

"Now that's a real fairy-tale moment."


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