‘We’re not like these girls’

It’s tough being famous. People see you on TV or in the movies playing a character and think they know you.

Take, for instance, Hilary and Haylie Duff, two famous sisters who have it all and are starring in the new movie “Material Girls” – about two famous sisters who have it all.

Can you see how people might get confused?

The sisters, sitting down together for a recent interview, acknowledge the similarities.

“They live together, and we live together,” Hilary says. “Haylie and I, you can’t say that we don’t like to shop every once in a while, but we’re not like these girls. In the movie the girls are very materialistic.”

Well, that would explain the title.

Hilary, who started in show business at the age of 14 with a popular TV series called “Lizzie McGuire,” is an 18-year-old with a high-profile singing career and a nice sideline acting in movies.

Haylie, who’s three years older, sings, too, but is more focused on acting. She’s starring in “Hairspray” on Broadway and has just started shooting the latest season of “7th Heaven” for the new CW television network.

They’re two very busy young women, but when they’re not working, they do what famous celebrities often do – going to clubs and parties, walking red carpets, posing for photos.

Again, it’s a lifestyle not unlike that of Tanzie and Ava Marchetta, the characters the Duffs play in “Material Girls.”

“There are definitely things that we drew from in our everyday life and experiences,” Haylie says.

The fictional Marchettas, heirs to a cosmetics empire, fall off the face of the planet when their company is scandalized – forcing the sisters, who have been catered to all their lives, to fend for themselves when it comes to things like clothing, shelter and food. Suddenly their fame counts for nothing.

The Duffs, natives of Houston, say they know all about clothing, shelter and food. They were nobodies once themselves.

But they’re certainly not anymore, nor is the face of the planet anything they’re likely to fall off soon – which presents its own set of challenges.

“We meet so many people and so many come up and act like they know us personally and they don’t,” says Hilary.

“Or they do and you just met them once or twice and you honestly don’t remember them,” adds Haylie.

“And you can’t be like, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t remember you.’ People take so much offense at that when you’re just honest with them,” Hilary says. “So we’re just like, ‘You! How are you?!’ “

The Duffs do have some familiarity with sudden falls from celebrity, though.

“The first time we came out to L.A., we stayed at the Oakwood Apartments, which is like a home for parents who have dragged their kids out to be in the business,” Hilary recalls. “All the young stars stayed there, all the young people who were on TV shows that were big at the time.

“We would see people who we knew from the magazines and they just kind of fell off the face of the planet and you’d hear about them later and it was like, ‘Oh my God, what is this person doing?’ A lot of that’s in the movie.”

Although the Duff sisters are getting older, along with their audience, “Material Girls” is still very much a bubble-gum picture.

“We did this a year ago, and it was a time when we didn’t want to stray so much from a young audience,” says Hilary. “Now we can move on and do things that are different or we feel can challenge us,” said Hilary.

“There are so many people out there who turn 18 and just want to do everything they can to prove to people that they’re not what people might assume they’re like or what they’re capable of,” she says.

“I’m only 18 and Haylie, you’re 21 and you can do whatever you want, but there’s always time for that, so what’s the rush?”

While Haylie divides her days in New York City shooting “7th Heaven” during the day and taking the “Hairspray” stage at night, Hilary is preparing for the release of a new record this fall and making the publicity rounds for that.

She also has a new fragrance, With Love Hilary Duff, coming out next month under the Elizabeth Arden label.

Martha Coolidge, who directed “Material Girls,” believes moviegoers will be seeing a lot more of Haylie in the future.

As for Hilary, she says: “I think it depends a lot on how she feels about acting as a career when she has so many other options.

“She’s a busy girl. She’ll be able to manage it if she chooses to do so.”