Francia Raisa Reveals How Hilary Duff Helped Her ‘Grow Up’ After Feeling ‘Stagnant’ & ‘Immature’

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Francia Raisa opened up about why she’s ‘the happiest’ she’s ‘ever been’ & how Hilary Duff & the ‘How I Met Your Father’ cast helped her get there.

Francia Raisa has graduated from playing (and sometimes, feel like) a teen and stepped into her big girl shoes, with a little help from her How I Met Your Father co-stars! “Up until this show, I was still playing a teenager. I was playing 10 years younger than myself, and one of the things that I realized during quarantine is that I had been growing up in my profession, in my personal life. I’ve been getting older, but in my professional life, I was staying stagnant in the same age range,” she explained to HollywoodLife in an EXCLUSIVE interview. “I learned during quarantine, when I actually got to live my life in my 30s and I wasn’t going to set with a bunch of people that were 10 years younger than me, that I was very immature, and I really quickly needed to grow up.” 

Francia revealed to HL that once she got to the set of the How I Met Your Mother spin-off, she finally felt “free in [her] own skin.” “We’re all kind of in the same place professionally, mentally, internally, and I really wanted to get there with my cast mates because I felt like I wasn’t there yet,” she said. “I went through a really crazy journey, and I’ve been very open about it with Hilary [Duff] and the rest of the cast about it, like, ‘Please be patient with me!’ Even though I’m in my 30s, this is a whole new world to me that I didn’t know that I was missing.” 

She went on to say that the cast, which includes Chris Lowell and Kim Cattrall, simply “respects each other,” which made the job even more fun. “We respect each other’s crafts, and we’re all there to do a great job. We all care about the show equally,” Francia said. “It’s just a different professionalism that I’m experiencing in an adult world. Like with Hilary, specifically, she has been so gracious with me… she’s helping me grow up a little bit.”

“I turned 34 in July and I want to marinate in it and appreciate it and and have fun with it for as long as I can. I feel like I’m just starting to live my life. And so it’s very exciting to see where can go from here,” Francia continued.

As for the upcoming, highly anticipated season 2 of How I Met Your Father, Francia teased that the “scripts are hilarious.” “They’re really going there. We have some really, really amazing guest stars that I can’t wait for y’all to see,” the actress said. She joked that she “came in to season 2 super confident, but then [she] got the script.” “It was like I forgot how to act! But, the minute I read with Hilary, and I heard her voice and was like, ‘Okay, I got this again.’”

Francia spoke to HollywoodLife in partnership with Ketel One Botanicals, which is her go-to for easy and delicious cocktail making! “I love having a cocktail, and it’s so light and so easy to make one. I just need to put in a little soda water and garnish in a wine glass and it looks fancy!” She gushed. “My favorite are the canned ons — they’re so good!”