Paolo never lied. Isabella was the true villain.

Clearing the name of Paolo Valisari

Everyone remembers Paolo as the smarmy liar who used Lizzie and ruined her trip to Rome. But watch it again. Paolo never tells a single lie, he does not lip-sync, and he never tries to deceive Lizzie. The real villain is Isabella Parigi, who lied at every turn, lip-synced on stage, sabotaged Paolo, and abandoned Lizzie when she needed her most.

The case rests on three pillars. First, Paolo only ever defends Isabella, and hurting her would have gained him absolutely nothing. Second, the one thing that looks like a lie, hiding that they had to sing, is fully explained in-universe and confirmed by the magazine cover he shows Lizzie. And third, the climax spells it out on the mixing board. Paolo's fader stays up while he sounds great, then his fader is pulled down and a bad track plays when he sounds terrible. That is a forced lip-sync, not Paolo singing.

The capstone is real-world. Isabella's singing voice is NOT her actress Hilary Duff! It is Hilary's sister Haylie Duff, confirmed by the director himself. Isabella is, in the most literal sense, a lip-syncer. And the man who made the movie agrees with us! We walked director Jim Fall through our entire theory scene by scene on the podcast, and he came all the way around. He is a believer. The director of The Lizzie McGuire Movie himself endorses this theory.

The evidence

Episode transcript

Hello, and welcome to The Popcorn Isn't Real. I'm Leif Eric. I'm here with my brother Torvald. And today we're going to be talking about the Lizzie McGuire movie. This is what dreams are made of. We have the director with us today. Please welcome to our podcast, Jim Fall. Hi, guys. Hi, everybody. Happy to be here. I'm really happy to have you here because, first of all, I really like the theory that we have about the Lizzie McGuire movie, which we'll get into. Can't wait. But I'm also a big fan of the Lizzie McGuire movie, basically series finale in movie form to the Lizzie McGuire show, which I think is really cool that they were able to make this, you know, like it's super cool because it is the canonical ending of the show and they knew it was going to be. They were sending it all out with a bang. And that's great that they got the opportunity to do that. Much like other female heroines of the time, mainly Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Mary-Kate and Ashley, she goes to Rome.

Yeah, she had to do one thing, and that is to go to Rome. Most important thing anyone could ever do. You're not a real teenage girl heroine from that time period, the early 2000s, until you go to Rome. Exactly. I think it's a really well-made movie, and what I really like is that it's very self-contained. You absolutely do not need to watch a single episode of the show to be fully engrossed in the Lizzie McGuire movie. They cover all their bases. I appreciate hearing that. I mean, this has been kind of an amazing year, year and a half, where I think a lot of kids who saw it when they were kids are now remembering it fondly. And it's been kind of a delayed, you know, reaction for me of hearing everybody as adults remembering the movie so well. So I'm thrilled to talk about it with you guys. It might be the only reason Leif and I saw it was because we had three sisters. So I don't know if it's me.

But no, we loved it. this movie will always hold a special place in my heart because as you said, it's very important for, uh, for young, young women on a magical adventure to go to Rome. And, uh, I just so happened to have gone to Rome with my wife and her family. And I forced all of us to sit down and watch the Lizzie McGuire movie in Rome, followed by the Sabrina, the teenage witch movie in Rome. In Rome. Wow. Which is pretty much the crowning achievement of my life. Oh my god that's kind of redundant. It's a little bit of overkill. One of my favorite things I ever did. So how did how did you get involved in this movie? Basically my agent sent me the script. I had made one movie a movie called Trick an independent film that went to Sundance and did well and I mean did well in that it sold and came out and people liked it. You know, it was about a year and a half or so when my agent sent me a script that I think at the time it was called Chow Lizzy.

And I knew nothing of the Lizzie McGuire show. I didn't know what the hell this was, but I read the script and I'm like, you know what, this is really sweet and funny. And listen, it's a trip to Rome. They're really going to go to Rome. Everything was in my wheelhouse. It was, you know, basically a romantic comedy. It was a musical, you know, mostly. And so all those elements were appealing, really appealing to me. And my executives at Disney at the time who hired me, Karen Glass and Doug Short, they told me I was the most enthusiastic. I met on, I basically just met on the project and then pitched what I would do to fix the script or make the movie. And they said I was the most enthusiastic and they liked my first movie too. So that's how they hired me how was that to to like step into this living lizzie mcguire universe and then create like the defining moment like the capstone of the series was that kind of daunting i it wasn't it wasn't

i think they they i know they wanted somebody outside of the mix for the movie i wanted to make it a movie i wanted it to be widescreen i wanted it to feel as much as a movie as possible given the sweet, simple story that was there. And I think that's another reason they hired me is they wanted the movie to be a movie and not feel like just another episode of the TV show. And now we're going to take that sweet, simple story and just kind of twist it a little bit, make it a little different. Sure. Basically, my theory revolves around Paolo Valisari. You might say he's the greatest villain Lizzie McGuire ever faced off against, right? Like he manipulated her. He practically ruined her magical trip to Rome, humiliated her in front of the entire world? Or did he? What did Paolo actually do to Lizzie in this movie? I mean, you might say he lied to her when he told her he didn't lip sync. He lied to her about having to perform on stage at the International Music Awards.

He definitely lied to her a lot. He left her high and dry on the stage to perform alone and turned her microphone on in front of everyone, right? No, that's wrong. Paolo did not actually do a single one of these things. But somebody did. It sounds like you watched a different movie than I did. I'm going to prove to you that canonically, in-universe, Isabella Perighi, Lizzie's Italian doppelganger, she was the true villain. Every single word she spoke to Lizzie was a lie. She was the one who lip-synced. She set Lizzie up for disaster. All like five words she spoke to Lizzie were a lie? That's correct, all of those words. She set Lizzie up for disaster after humiliating Paolo, who was just a kind and naive former partner who never once lied to Lizzie. you're gonna have a hard time proving he never once lied to lizzie he did not ever lie to lizzie okay the movie starts out with lizzie and her friends graduating from junior high and if you've

seen the show and if you've seen the movie you might be wondering like where is miranda in this movie because lizzie has a best friend who is a girl who is named miranda who doesn't even make an appearance in the movie right and i did not know she existed until i finally watched the show years and years later yeah well there's like a throwaway line from lizzie de gordo where she says miranda's in mexico city right now which just explains her away with one single line and you'd never have to worry about her again it doesn't even impact the movie in any way that she's got yeah i thought it was interesting that miranda is you know absent and for whatever reason the role of best friend has to be filled by kate her worst enemy pretty much but it actually i think works almost a little better because throughout the entire show there's this thing where kate and lizzie used to be best friends and kind of drifted apart and kate became a mean girl isn't that also

the plot of brace face what wasn't the mean girl don't don't we could go real far into how these shows all why did you know pay respects to each other why didn't she ever go to rome no wait she did go to rome oh i forgot there's an episode where because her best friend nova i forget her best friend's name but she's she's part she's half roman half like asian and they do go to rome i forget you're right roman she's half italian half roman well it's okay paolo refers to himself and the people there as romans so i guess it's all right so oh no dude there's even an episode of lizzie mcguire where lizzie goes crazy overboard and starts uh bugging everybody about being environmentally friendly and doing all the environmental stuff just like Braceface did. Is there another episode that got banned where she gets an inflatable bra that's controlled by a remote and then people start stepping on it and her boobs get gigantic? Dude, I gotta watch

Braceface again. This sounds great. All right. All right. So we were talking about Kate Sanders, Lizzie's mean best friend. So I think this is actually really interesting because right there at the graduation kate comes up and starts being all mean to lizzie she's calling out lizzie for wearing the same outfit to the middle school graduation under her robes as she did to the spring dance and i think it's odd that they have like robes and caps for their middle school graduation but we'll get into that middle school graduation this is interesting because we know from the series that the spring dance was the spring fling and that lizzie was specifically banned from attending the spring fling because she covered for kate when kate broke the head off of the statue of the school's first principal walter peterson which was the entire point of that episode so come on kate what's wrong with you what happened to your memory like her calling

lizzie out for wearing the same outfit doesn't even make sense when clearly no i don't i don't think anything happened to her memory i think this is her giving lizzie like a warning like Like, you don't, we're going to pretend that didn't happen, Lizzie. You didn't cover for me. I don't owe you anything. Wow. Pretty ominous. But yeah, what's with this graduation? Why, who, did you have a middle school graduation like this? I don't think I did. Listeners tweeted us on at popcorn isn't real. No apostrophe. Did you have a middle school graduation ceremony with like hats and gowns and speeches and stuff? Because I sure didn't. So Lizzie has a big siasco during the graduation, makes a fool of herself. We move on. They're all going on a trip to Rome. I mean, I just want to say that this weird class trip was also very confusing to me because they're acting like they have to obey the principal Ungermeyer, who is not yet their

principal. Yeah, I know. It's weird. They are not in high school yet. They're also not in middle school. It's just very confusing as to what this class trip is and how it is occurring and also why their principal thinks she can assign them like homework and reports and stuff when, first of all, she's not even their teacher. Second of all, they're not even attending her school yet. Yeah, no, it's pretty weird. Sorry, sorry. So, so she's in, she's in Rome. She bumps into Paolo at the Trevi Fountain. This is the first time they ever meet. He says he thought she was Isabella. And then his bodyguard says that they have to go. So he catches up with Lizzie at the gelato store, introduces himself, you know, he's Paolo, the big pop star, and asks Sergei, the bodyguard, if he thinks that Lizzie looks like Isabella. And it's at this point that suddenly masses of bystanders start photographing them and

mobbing them and saying that she's Isabella and giving her cheese. Trying to crush them with giant wheels of cheese. He says, you know, you look just like Isabella, except for your hair. You're like two pods and a pea. He asks if they can see each other again tomorrow. Lizzie turns him down, so he kind of pressures her into it. says when some people come to Rome, it's because they want to find an adventure. She tells him that he can't even call her or talk to her because then she'd get in trouble with the school. So he says, let's meet at Trevi Fountain, nine o'clock tomorrow, if you change your mind. Do you believe that it actually was an accident that Paolo found her? Was that just really by chance? You think that Paolo knew that she was coming beforehand? I don't know. Something about the way he finds her at the fountain seemed a little shady to me. I don't know. But like, it doesn't make any sense that he would know.

No, it does. But like, it's the answer to all of his problems, right? It's entirely possible that Paolo knew Lizzie was coming and had planned to meet her at the fountain because it is possible in universe, though. Because get this, there are other people who recognize Lizzie in Italy, not as Isabella, but as Lizzie McGuire. When they first get to the hotel, the hotel manager recognizes Lizzie from her high school graduation because of the fiasco where she knocked everything over. He says that he saw that on CNN. It was worldwide news. That is very true. That is very true. So it's totally possible that Paolo saw this. I'm going to believe it. Right. Paolo could have seen this global CNN report. He could have noticed that Lizzie looked exactly like his partner, Isabella, and then thought, hey, I got to meet her. And, you know, maybe they finished up the report mentioning the school trip to Rome.

Who knows? And he could have said, wow, I'll just go to the Trevi Fountain every day and wait for her. Who knows? That's pretty dedicated there, Paolo. That is very dedicated, but possible. We'll see. Possible. That's not one of the staples of my theory, but just a fun little tidbit that he could have actually been waiting for her there. So, see, I mean, but I would say that's a point for the dark Paolo theory, as we can call it. He knew that she was going to be there. He knew she was the answer to her problems because he saw the CNN report. She looks just like Isabella. I'm going to try to run into her. Where would she go? Oh, I'll just hang out at the Trevi Fountain with my bodyguard for the next couple of days. I don't know. But what about this makes him dark, Paolo? He's just trying to do exactly what he tells her he's trying to do, which is to save his career. Right, but this isn't a normal thing.

This is like a really weird stalkerish thing to do, to be like, aha, she looks just like Isabella. i'm gonna use her to do what what i want her to do you know yeah so i mean who cares it's not like he's trying to do anything bad to her all right well we'll we'll get into more of dark paolo but but we can we can move on one of the things that happens in this movie is that you know people in italy are recognizing lizzie mcguire and thinking she's famous because you know she looks like isabella yeah in the actual shooting of the movie was the lizzie mcguire show a popular show in italy no it really wasn't i don't remember no i wasn't of course with hillary when she was on her own whether or not but i'm pretty sure she said and i certainly did not witness anybody recognizing her i don't think the lizzie mcguire show had really permeated um italy at that point because we we never were mobbed it was more just being mobbed because we were making a movie and cameras

right people look but no one was like you know hillary hillary none of that happened Was it easy to actually do the filming in Italy, or was it a bit of a hassle? It was a wonderful hassle. I mean, it was insane. I have photos of us shooting on the Spanish steps, and there are just throngs of people. We didn't really, we got permits, but you can't, we didn't have the money to clear the streets and use millions of our own extras. Of course not. So even at the Trevi Fountain, everyone you see on camera are pretty much our extras. But if you pull back, it's mobbed with people behind us. like right behind us, like right on us. So it was not easy doing that, but it was really fun. It was really fun. So this is where she starts having to fake illness in order to sneak out and meet with Paolo every day. So he takes her on a scooter ride to, in his words, see Rome how the Romans do. And they get stuck in a traffic jam.

And oh no, the school bus is right behind them. And so Gordo has to distract Mrs. Ungermeyer because she might see Lizzie. I mean, Lizzie's wearing a helmet and literally all she has to do is not look behind her. Yep, that's all she has to do. She's very bad at this. Because she already saw the bus. So all she has to do is not look again. She's really, really not good at not looking behind her as we find out in this scene. Gordo literally just says to Mrs. Ungermeyer that there are really cool places that we should go to. We missed this one place. I'm a fan of Roman art and history And Mrs. Ungermeyer says, you're on my list now. And I'm not sure if this is her kill list or her possibly have sex with list. Oh, it's the same list Sergei's on. She puts Sergei on the list and she's clearly very attracted to him. So I'm not sure what's going on there. Yeah, I mean, she's also always like constantly calling out Gordo for things.

She hates Gordo. Absolutely hates Gordo. like she's calling him a sneaky little brown noser with an agenda he's just talking to you she knows nothing about him he's just like that was literally him introducing he's never spoken to her before in his entire life well and that's the first time he speaks to her she calls him a sneaky little brown noser and tells him he's not going to get far with her like that so then next time he speaks to her is at the hotel when she's like all right gordon you get this room and all he says is okay sure sounds good and then she turns on him and is like well the only thing i hate more than a sneaky little brown noser is a spineless little wimp who just folds over and does what i say what are you trying to get him to do she does not give gordon any wiggle room whereas like ethan craft uh like he's just skateboarding around in his room just not doing any of the

things she said and she doesn't care at all she's like she seems to respect kids more like ethan who are stupid or I don't know about stupid. Or defiant. But yeah, he's not even defiant, but just like she hates people who try, I guess. Wow. That's the perfect person to be in charge of education.

Paolo and Lizzie get out of there. They're walking the streets of Italy, having a good time. Lizzie asks Paolo if he still loves Isabella. And he says, of course, I still love her, but like a sister, right? She asks why they broke up and he says, it's complicated i mean yes we've been voted best pop duo of the year again but i want to do more serious music and when i told this isabella she said flat out no so i was forced to tell her this is it this would be our last cd together and lizzie asks if she freaked out and paulo says she totally freaked out and yes i feel awful about that but what about me i need to grow as an artist you know so then he tells her that he has this crazy idea isabella and i are supposed to present an award together at the international music video awards right and he says but now because isabella is so mad at me she's refusing to appear the record company is threatening to sue her if

she doesn't show up and lizzie says what about you and he says for me that's no problem i write the music i can go solo but isabella she needs the help to sing and lizzie says you mean isabella lip syncs and Paolo is so quick. He jumps out and he says, please, please, please, please. You must promise me that you will never speak of this to anyone. Imagine what would happen to Isabella's career. And I'm just going to point out that throughout this whole movie, Paolo does a whole lot of sticking up for Isabella. In fact, not once could I find a single instance where Paolo says a negative thing about Isabella or actually tries to ruin her career. He's actually mostly defending her career okay okay but i have to say one thing he does kind of lie in the scene you kind of glossed over it when he goes when he goes i don't need i don't uh you see it's i forget he said i can sing la la la he kind of goes la la la la it's like can you sing really is that really

singing and then right but it's a he didn't want to put on a concert on the spot i know but it's a subtle moment of like uh if he could really sing you would have sang or anyway okay that was Definitely. No, I can totally see what you're saying. But a big part of this theory is that Paolo can sing and does not lip sync, which I'm also going to prove, which might sound crazy to me. That sounds like he was lying. You're going to have a tough time proving that one. I have actual proof that Paolo does not lip sync in this movie, that he is actually singing. But we'll get to that later. That's the grand finale. Okay. Okay. The next day they go shopping together in one of the most expensive shopping districts in the world. And Paolo thanks Lizzie again, specifically for doing such a kind thing for Isabella. He's constantly saying nice things about Isabella or thanking Lizzie for looking out for Isabella. I just think it's weird when if he really wants to destroy Isabella's career,

all he needs to do is turn Lizzie against her instead of make her like Isabella, right? True. Now, everybody wants to be a hero, right? He knows that people respond better to, you know, honey than vinegar right he's he's gonna draw her in by letting her be the hero you can not only work with me hot italian guy but you can save the career of this person who i love you know like he's allowing her to be the hero we can put that on the back burner but let me just sum up by saying paolo never once in this entire movie says a single negative thing about isabella when on the other hand isabella is exclusively angry and vindictive towards paolo every time And she talks about him. You're right, you're right. And that does certainly check out with Paolo's story. Right. There's one of these two people that seems to hate the other one, and it's not Paolo. This is when he takes Lizzie to find an outfit for the music awards.

This is actually my favorite shot in the whole movie. So he takes her to this place. This is right before she starts doing the dress-up thing. Suddenly she's surrounded by just like five, I don't know, hairstylists, dresser people. And they give her everything a girl could want. They give her some candy and a phone. They have, yeah, they're just holding out stuff to her. Rotary phone. And then there's a shot of her sitting down, literally surrounded by five creepy people who are staring at her right up in her face without blinking. And she says, I'll just be sitting here in heaven with a huge smile. I'm like, dude, this is not heaven. This is so creepy. Like this lady is just staring at you, holding out cookies. She's not even blinking. To me, this scene is important because as she starts trying on the clothes, she doesn't like them. She doesn't like how she looks. She says she's going to be shy and she's not going to have confidence on stage.

And Paolo reassures her and says, we're all that way. And Lizzie says, not you. And then he says, yes, me. And Isabella, too. But it's how she works through her fears that makes her strong. And it's just once again, he is only saying good things about Isabella. Well, I mean, I've always thought all of that was because he didn't want Hillary, Lizzie, to think he was a terrible person, that he was doing something underhanded. So he's, of course, going to be constantly not saying terrible things about Isabella, you know, to scare Lizzie off. Lizzie's the rebound in this case, and it's usually pretty easy to turn your girlfriend against the, you know, the rebound against the other woman, right? That would have been the slightly darker, meaner version where he's constantly telling you how bad Isabella is. Jim, can I ask, because I've shot a few films, but never like a costume montage. How long does that take to just constantly be having your actor go back to wardrobe, get dressed in a totally different outfit and come back for just like a two second shot of her in another outfit?

Yeah. Yeah. It took a while and doubly long because she's 15 and you only have young actors for a short amount of time anyway. So if I remember correctly, we were at that location, which was in Vancouver, because it was an interior. It was at least two days. It was at least a two day shoot for that whole sequence. That was the challenge. Really, the whole movie was just having a 15 year old in the lead because you don't have time. You don't have you don't know. You're not allowed to have time with her. So every time you see the back of her head, it's not her. there's, we couldn't use the back of her head. So it's always a stand, always a stand in. Okay. How is the casting process? Because like really the, the new character for this was Paolo, right? Like everyone else was returning from the show. Yeah. How did that go? Like, what were you looking for in a Paolo? Yanni auditioned in Vancouver and he's Canadian

and he's not Italian, but I'm not sure if that's obvious, but he had great hair though. He had great hair, he's handsome, he was kind of perfect for the part. Yeah, so Yanni auditioned and he was great. We loved him and we... Well, I think you found the right one. I really like Paolo. I really like Yanni as an actor and I think he played the role really well. I do too. I think he's great. I wish that... I don't know if you know too much about the Lizzie McGuire reboot that just got canceled. Yeah, I mean, I know as much as you. I wasn't in on it specifically, but it's just tragic. I was pumped for that. I was so excited. I was like, man, I'm going to get to watch Lizzie McGuire again. It's going to be great. I had an idea that I think maybe dovetails with your idea about Paolo, because I've always thought Paolo was a good boyfriend for Lizzie ultimately also. I wanted I would love to see a sequel where Lizzie and Paolo run into each other again.

And that's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah, I was hoping for the reboot, sorry, the revival that they were going to bring Paolo back and we were going to see what happened. And he's like, you know, whatever he is now, but he's not the asshole he was. It's a whole flip. You know, that he's. Well, he never, he never was an asshole. Well, that's what I want to hear. All right. All right. I think we're to the point in the movie where I feel like I know how you're going to get around this problem, but I'll ask anyway. So why did Paolo hide the fact that she has to sing at the awards? It's pretty big. That's pretty big lie. Is it though? Did he actually lie? So the way Lizzie finds out about this is that Gordo gets a magazine from some Italian girls and it has Lizzie on the cover. He tells Lizzie about it. He says he got these Italian girls to translate it for him. And Lizzie, you know, she wants to trust Paolo, but she's like, hey, this is kind of weird.

And she confronts him next time they're going to go on a date. She says, Paolo, why didn't you tell me we were going to sing? And he says, I wanted to tell you, but you told me not to telephone the hotel. And this is true. That was the very first thing she told him. So he was just respecting her wishes. Exactly. But then, no, it gets a little even more understandable. As they're driving, Paolo says, Isabella and I were going to sing, but after Isabella would not speak to me, I told the producers we refused to perform. I said Isabella had throat problems. Lizzie asks what changed, and he says, you did. A reporter heard you speaking in front of the gelato shop. He reported that Isabella's voice was fine, and he said her English was very good, by the way. But then the record company called, and now they're going to sue if we don't sing. Paolo's story completely checks out in-universe. The photo on the cover of that magazine is of them at the gelato shop, just like he said.

And the headline is, of course, in Italian, but I tried my best to translate it. And it is talking about the International Music Awards. And it's specifically the headline is announcing something along the lines of the couple will perform at the big international event, which sounds like they weren't going to perform. And this magazine has a scoop that now they are because her voice is all better, right? Like, seems like he wasn't lying.

Yes, you are making a lot of sense. Of course, he didn't tell her they were going to perform, you know, a day ago on their date because he didn't think they were. He saw this article and they're going to get sued. So now he's like, we are going to perform, right? It wasn't his fault.

You're making sense, shockingly. Yeah, I know, right? Like it makes perfect sense. Okay. It's around this point that Lizzie and Paolo go to the rehearsal hall to prep the music awards. He's going to teach her how to lip sync. When they start dancing, they're both really good. was that actually hillary and yanni yes and no okay there was it's pretty much once the music kicks in and it's the montage it's kind of what i said before anytime we're looking at them in the front and it's their faces it's both of them anytime the camera's swooping around behind them it's they're both dance doubles and in fact okay in fact the boy magic yeah the boy who stands in for Yanni in this is the same boy that's in the end number who looks kind of like Yanni next to really yeah oh wow oh that's great he's that's the same guy my brother and I whenever we watched the movie we we actually pointed out that backup singer in the end yeah we we had like a pretend

little theory that we were like what if this was like Paolo's brother or maybe like a clone of Paolo or something yeah that's really interesting to hear you say that he actually played Paolo he played Paolo in the dance, in that dance sequence, that very one. Yeah. Oh man, that made my day. Okay. He starts telling Lizzie to start lip syncing. He says, just like Isabella, you know the song, right? And she says, yes. And then she gives it a try and he stops her. He tells her that her lip syncing is pretty awful, but it helps to sing. He says, it looks more real when you're lip syncing, if you sing. And she says, but you weren't singing. And he says, but I won't be lip syncing lizzie no one's gonna hear you when you're on stage because the microphone will be off you must try please he's not lying here he will not be lip syncing at least not of his own accord okay but in his mind isn't he lying like because because he wasn't planning on bombing

that award show at the end right no he was not he was planning to sing well and did sing well we'll get to that all right all right can i ask a quick question just about so yanni gelman is playing a really big famous like singer pop artist and he's playing across from hillary duff who's playing lizzie who isn't but in real life hillary duff was a singer pop artist and and yanni gelman was it like what was that like pretending to be the i don't know the big shot Did he have a hard time with it? The other one is. No, he didn't have a hard time. He was totally cool. And if you remember, really, Hilary wasn't quite the singing pop star yet. She had only had a Christmas album out at that point. Yeah, that's true. Her albums hadn't, you know, the album came out after the movie, then she really became more of a singing star for a while. So I guess it was probably Hey Now, Hey Now that did it. I mean, it's interesting, and I've said this before,

but they didn't love that song. I had that song commissioned from my friend, Dean Fitchford, who co-wrote it, wrote Footloose and wrote a whole bunch of wonderful Oscar nominated and winning. He wrote Fame. He wrote all these things, right? Wow. He'd become a friend and I asked him if he'd write the finale number. He wrote this with another writer whose name I always forget because I'm a terrible person. Anyway, he, we, I loved the song. I loved it. Me too. Amazing song. I know. But back then, they really had to go to the mat to get Disney to like it and for Hillary's mom to like it. And they thought it was too bubblegummy or something. I was like, this song is perfect for this movie. It is. Absolutely. That's actually, you're like blowing my mind here. So you're the reason that we got this is what dreams are made of. That's so cool. Yeah, that song. And I had to fight for it. And so did Dean Pitchford. He had

to go and and really convinced it was mostly hillary's mom i think she was her manager and there was work because they were about to launch her music career and it was a sweeter song than what they wanted her to do but it's like this is a lizzie song not a hillary song you know it's different yeah anyway yeah we had to fight for it well i'm glad you got it i am too me too it's a great song i love it i've been singing it for for decades it's so catchy it just sticks in your brain it's an earworm it really is i have this fondest memory of driving around rome our driver with this really cool heavyset guy named maximo and he i got the cd which was the which was the demo dean had had a demo singer sing the original demo of the song and we put it in the car when we drove to the set and we were all like bopping to it because it was so good and i said i asked maximo i was like do you like do you like the song and he goes i love

it i love this song we're keeping the song all right all right the next part is when gordo is getting shipped off right yes he's gotta go back home so gordo's at the airport all alone i know there's no chaperones i know i know it's okay i mean it actually fits in the universe because mrs ungemeier was i mean she was a bit uh a bit crazy i know one chaperone even for all those kids just won. And then they send them to the airport in a foreign country to go home. Well, and I mean, he basically gets kidnapped by some crazy Italian woman, right? So it's clearly a bad idea. As you mentioned, Gordo, he's in the airport. He's all alone. He happens to see Isabella. He recognizes her because she looks just like his best friend, Lizzie. Runs up, pushes through her entourage. And Isabella, in the meantime, unlike Paolo, is saying a lot of mean things about Paolo. She's really unhappy with Paolo. So she's complaining. She's saying,

who is this girl? I've been relaxing on that island, trying to forget about this whole situation. And then this, can somebody tell me what's going on? No, I'm just going to point out here. It sounds like she had no intention of actually dealing with these music awards. In which case, yeah, she was going to get sued and Paolo really was helping her, right? But so, Gordon, he kind of elbows in. Did you have anything to say? No, no, no. It's just bringing flashbacks of reading the script and trying to connect the dots to make sure that all this stuff made sense. And you're finding, like, the loosey-goosey underpinnings. I've connected all the loose ends. Yeah. No, so Gordo, he slides in and he says, hey, that's my friend, Lizzie McGuire. I can tell you all about her. At which point Isabella grabs him and says, I demand for you to tell me everything you know about this Lizzie McGuire. And he says, you tell me everything about Paulo Valisari.

And then Isabella says, I left all my thoughts about him on the island. And then Gordo says, well, you may have left him on the island, but my friend Lizzie is out there pretending to be you so that you don't get sued. At which point Isabella looks really uncomfortable and says, we need to talk in private, which sounds kind of sinister to me, but I don't know.

It all makes perfect sense. I'm not sure what your problem is. Oh, my version makes perfect sense as well. You'll see. OK, it's the end of the movie. They're going to have the big finale. It's the music awards. Lizzie is nervous again. Paolo reassures her once again for the umpteenth time in this movie, says she can do it because you shine with the light from the sun so as it is pointed out by Isabella later Paolo does use that line on everyone apparently no he she just heard him say it she was right there no she was she didn't hear him say she knows he used that line because he used it on her no she heard him he uses it on everyone there I am pretty sure the implication is that he uses it on everyone yeah or she was standing right there and heard it all right so Gordo pulls her aside and says lizzie listen to me paulo is setting you up lizzie says what are you talking about and isabella says

actually he is setting me up yeah gordo tells her the whole story about paulo doing his own music and going solo that's isabella she's the one that sings live and isabella is very quick to to nod and say see paulo is the one that lip syncs not me maybe a little too quick to agree right isabella so gordo says that isabella is the one who wants to quit the act paolo's just a liar this has all been some sort of crazy scheme to set you up and embarrass you on stage so it looks like isabella can't sing how why like how could she possibly know this she can't read paolo's mind like the only thing she could infer from this is that paolo wants to save their careers and stop them from getting sued i mean it's gonna take some work to convince me that she lip syncs but She says to Lizzie, Lizzie, who are you going to believe? This boy you've known your whole life? And then I think she should have stepped forward and said,

or yourself, and pointed to her own face. Yeah. Which, of course, wouldn't have made any sense because that boy and her were saying the same thing. Well, that would have been great. No, I actually wanted to point out this line because she's saying, Lizzie, who are you going to believe? this boy you knew your whole life, meaning Gordo and vicariously Isabella, or this boy you're just meeting who says you shine with the light from the sun. Believing Gordo in this case just means believing Isabella. Who is this girl who she just met, right? Like there's no reason to believe Isabella more than Paolo. Believing Gordo is not the issue here because Gordo knows no more about what's happening than Lizzie. Yeah. I mean, I can go along with that. Gordo could possibly misinformed in this situation it's all very confusing it's okay we'll we'll get to it okay this this is really important because at this point lizzie says okay well then now you're here

so go and sing that's exactly what should have happened like isabella is here she needs to get on stage and sing because it's her freaking job right like there's no reason for her not to because she wants to embarrass paulo she wants to exactly she wants to reverse turn the table sounds like sounds like maybe a vindictive kind of person right isabella says paulo will know it's me and he'll make an excuse to leave but if we want to get back at him in front of the whole world on live tv we must make him sing and i don't know it sounds like she has it out for paulo right she i'm just saying compare the way paulo talks about her which is always you know praising and defense defending her and she just seems to want to hurt him i don't know all right so the sound guy sandro says that paolo did not bring a voice track for isabella meaning lizzie sandro says she's going to sing live like she always does now why did he not bring

a voice track for lizzie when they were only practicing lip syncing right like in their one little uh rehearsal they did they only practiced lip syncing so why didn't he bring a voice track for her i'll tell you exactly what's going on isabelle walks up to sandro and says sandro did you bring the voice track for me tonight he looks at her then looks at gordo and then says no no he did not there is no track paulo he says you're going to sing live like you always do Right. And I think this sounds exactly like a practice line, which he's saying because there is somebody next to her. You're going to sing live like you always do, wink, wink, right? Nobody in the history of the earth would ever unprompted use the qualifier like you always do unless they are lying, right? Either way you read what happens next, Isabella is thick as thieves with Sandro because he does whatever she says anytime she says it he doesn't care what paolo says he doesn't care what

happens to paolo he cares about isabella and this makes perfect sense if you understand the fact that isabella lip syncs so of course she needs to be in with a sound guy he is on her side 100 all right so he's ready for her and he's just doing what he does which is lie and say you don't lip sync you're going to sing live like you always do all right all right i don't know why they needed to have this so practice just to impress this random high school kid who doesn't they weren't counting on him being there and she's not thinking about that like she she was just coming to talk to her sound guy and he was just doing what he always does when there's someone else around say you sing live you don't lip sync okay i think that makes sense i mean it could make sense i would have cut to his eyes going like uh like i know i know okay but just just wait here comes the very best proof that I have.

All right. So the song starts. Lizzie walks on stage. Isabella says, Sandro, turn down Isabella's mic. Right. And Sandra says, what's that? She says, turn down the mic. Now, Sandro turns down Isabella's mic. Paolo's mic right next to Isabella's is still turned up. Paolo's mic is on and he's singing. I'll have to. Oh, yeah. Maybe you've caught. I mean, it's very clear. I feel like I'm on trial. No, no, please don't feel that way.

Isabella starts singing for Lizzie, okay? She sings the ballad portion of it. I could almost kiss the stars, right? They get into it. Paolo sees Isabella singing for Lizzie and just looks confused, but goes along with it, right? Because he's probably really happy that his partner's actually here and now he doesn't have to pretend to save her career, right? Now they can just do the performance as far as he's concerned. Right. So at this point, Isabella points to Gordo. He turns Paolo's audio down. He doesn't turn it up so you can hear Paolo. He turns Paolo's audio down. Right. And then turns up some other random channel, three random unlabeled channels. And suddenly, Paolo sounds bad and looks really confused about it. Right. Okay. Isabella walks up to him and says, sing to me, Paolo. Now, this is what we might call in a magic actor in social engineering, this is a force. She's forcing him to keep trying to sing because he's confused.

He doesn't know what's going on. He doesn't know why he sounds horrible. Isabella and Lizzie both look so snidely at him, and he just looks betrayed. He just looks broken. He shakes his head and just walks away. Clearly, what's happening here is that his mic was on, and she turned on a bad track that she had pre-recorded to embarrass him. If this is a pre-recorded track, recorded by who? It might be the audio guy. It might be Sandro. Who knows? The only thing important here is that the audio guy, Sandro, is clearly, either way you interpret this movie, clearly willing to bomb Paolo's career. So it's a pre-recorded track, and he is now essentially, unbeknownst to himself, lip-syncing to a bad track. You got it. And that's why he's so confused. He doesn't know what's going on. First of all, Isabella's here. Now he sounds bad. Like his first thought was, I guess I just need to sing a little better.

So he tried and then he gets it and that's why he leaves. The obvious argument would be, why does the bad soundtrack that she recorded to sabotage him lip sync with him so well if he thinks he's really singing? But I think the answer to that would be that, you know, they both know the song. They know how to sing exactly on rhythm and on time. My mind is leaking out of my brain at this point because I can't quite wrap my head around what you, you, I mean, it all kind of comes down to what levels were being pushed up and down on that, on that soundboard. Right. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I got to look at it again now. Cause now I'm like, now I'm confused. Seriously. I would encourage you and anyone listening. It's funny you're saying all this because I remember my producer, uh, David Rossell and I two or three days before we shot that whole thing, we literally had lost our minds trying to figure out what the hell we were what what made sense because it didn't make sense

and so the best we could come up with was okay the mics are here maybe that's a maybe that really is a blooper it's not a blooper it's it's confirming my theory here um lizzie feeling that her job is done turns to leave, but oh no, no, no. Isabella's horrific revenge is not done yet. She sees Lizzie leaving, then walks towards the crowd. She wanted to tank Paolo and she wanted to destroy her doppelganger, Lizzie. She sees Lizzie leaving and says, se bueno sera to my new American friend, Lizzie McGuire. And then explains so that everyone knows Paolo tried to use her to try and fool all of you into thinking that I could not sing. Like she is very quickly explaining this whole situation to everyone, just like she quickly explained it to Lizzie. It seems like she's trying to control the narrative. Oh, that's when they're backstage when, when, when, um, when Paolo's about to get confronted by Sergei. So it's off camera. Yes, it's off camera, but you can still hear her

talking. I'm just saying, I mean, she's really trying to control this narrative here that someone was trying to screw her over but she's a hero yeah yeah seems like maybe she wouldn't say anything about that and would just continue the the concert unless she really has a vindictive uh sorry a vendetta towards well i mean she could still be pissed it doesn't have to be a vendetta i mean she could still be upset that he was trying to pull something over on this poor american girl who just so happens to be able to the same and one thing too about our podcast is is torvald and i we sound crazy like we're interpreting the movie and so it's this weird way that it was a way that it clearly wasn't supposed to be yes but you are clearly you're making a lot of sense though that's what's frightening me that's why we always say to everyone like go and watch the movie you know if you own it or rent it or whatever but like watch it again and maybe maybe we're not so

crazy look for these details i'm pointing out every single one of them actually happens in the It's so true. So Paolo leaves. We cut back to Isabella. She says, do you want to hear her sing? And then Sandra turns Lizzie's mic up again. Lizzie is kind of forced to sing. She had no intention of singing on stage. Paolo never forced her to sing on stage. He had an audio track all ready for her. He was going to have her lip sync. Isabella forces Lizzie to do something outside of her comfort zone and sing on stage. Kind of sinister, right? Like, why is she doing this? you are so right you are right and isabella and lizzie start their duet and what you're saying is that isabella's luck her incredible luck has just run out just ran out because even though she had no idea that lizzie could sing turns out she can sing just as good as isabella right so isabella was planning for lizzie to bomb so that she could be like haha everyone look at this stupid girl who

thought she could be me now listen to me sing right she was just going to take care of lizzie because she didn't want someone who looked just as good as her and sang, you know, in people's minds, just as good as her running around, right? She needed to take care of all of her competition and Lizzie was part of that competition. Isabella and Lizzie at this point have their big and wonderful duet, their huge musical number. I gotta say, I just love the shot where they're pointing at each other, you know, and the camera swish pans over to the other one. It's just like, when my wife and I rewatched it recently and she was just like whoa rewind that that was so cool and i mean it must have been hard to pull off back in what 2001 or two like yeah i mean that's why that's why it was i tried to do a lot of sort of clever cutting and that one swish pan you know that we had we had a wonderful effects team

back then but you know not not to the extent you have now we could have done all that stuff so easily but uh there's lots of clever cuts and doubles so as the director you probably know better than any of us. Hilary Duff is actually voicing Hilary Duff's singing voice. But who's voicing Isabella's singing voice? I'm 98% sure it was Hayley Duff, her sister. The actual, when the music was actually recorded, the vocals, they would go away and record them and bring them back to me. So I didn't witness it happening, but I was told, and we had a discussion that it would make more sense if it was Hayley, because Hayley can sing, and plus there's an extra track on the album of Hayley's yeah yeah yeah so it's Hayley it's Hayley Duff's voice well that's really great that you can confirm that rumor then because that also confirms that there is one person on this stage that is currently lip-syncing and it's Isabella not Lizzie all right Lizzie's voice is actually

Hilary Duff her actor's voice she is not lip-syncing Isabella's voice is not her actor Hilary Duff's voice Isabella's voice is Hayley Duff's voice or maybe someone else She is currently lip syncing on stage. Just pointing that out for you. True, but when you make a movie, when you make a movie, everybody's lip syncing. So it's another layer. I know, I know. But still, she's the only person up there singing with not her real voice, right? That's true. I mean, that has to mean something in-universe. It's at this point that lip syncing Isabella decides that she will tank Lizzie no matter what. Is she just straight up leaves? At the end of the first verse, she just leaves. She just nopes out of there. She's just out. And there's no reason for her to leave. I agree with you on this point. It is very weird that Isabella just straight up leaves the stage. She's like, well, so she can perform. Let's see how she performs alone.

And left. Oh, my God. Unfortunately, all those backup dancers came out to save her. I know. I know. Those great backup dancers and Paolo's brother. They saved her butt. No, I just I can't think of a single reason that Isabella would leave in the middle of her own music number unless it's to try and screw Lizzie.

She's doing that to give Hillary, Lizzie, her moment alone on stage to shine that that was the logic. You know, it's interesting. That was actually my idea because originally the writers wanted Lizzie and Isabella to sing the duet the whole time on the stage. right? For the whole number. And part of me was like, for two reasons. One, that's going to be a real problem to shoot, you know, with the effects that we don't have time to do or money to do well. So I didn't want to have to do a bunch of a whole bunch of cheat shots. I already did enough to have them together. Right. Right. And the other thing was just my instinct was just this is Hillary's, you know, dream movie, you know, wish fulfillment. She needs to shine alone on stage no matter how little sense it might make to have her sing at the end because completely i mean you're right why does isabel leave i don't know maybe because she's a super villain

maybe because she's a super villain no i thought because she had a heart of gold and wanted lizzie to sing yeah obviously she could be maleficent i don't know obviously any sane person watching this movie would realize that it's this is lizzie's moment and this is her her big finale to her whole awesome show that she had but i know but the plot the plot has holes and i i hear i see it i see you no the plot doesn't have holes it all makes sense if you just you know listen to my theory and believe it everything makes sense i think it's an amazing plot but seriously taking off my you know my theory glasses what a finale like oh man after after seeing the whole lizzie mcguire show and then seeing lizzie up on stage in the coliseum singing with backup dances it's like oh what a to end off one thing that i've noticed about the movie re-watching it and also re-watching the whole show i think the movie actually does a really good job staying true to the tone and the humor of

the show um like yeah they're very similar but then the movie is just it's it's bigger right like it feels a little more like epic i don't know but yeah i mean because it can be i mean we were in rome and we had you know 17 million dollar budget and i mean the tv show doesn't have that at its disposal so it couldn't have had the same scope just to throw another a completely ridiculous theory into the mix there is a moment during that finale where she tells lizzie to sing lizzie's about to she's trying to get off stage and gordo like stops her from going off stage yeah and yeah we were like why is gordo forcing her to stay on stage unless unless gordo has something worked out with isabella where he was like clearly i'm not going to get lizzie i've always been playing second chair to people like Ethan Craft and now Paolo. Maybe if I work with Isabella, I can get someone who looks exactly like Lizzie. That's hilarious. You know, this is all

so great to hear because as I was saying at the beginning of our conversation, I have always thought that if there was ever a sequel, and I was thinking more in terms of a movie, but even if it turned out to be the TV show, I really would want her to run into Paolo. And then how wonderful would it be if palos completely changed he's now a really good guy well in your mind he was always a good guy yeah and he's like you know whatever he is now but he's not a pop star and he's like in obscurity right and somehow they actually do fall in love in this new version that would be awesome man and isabella i mean but your theory is great because then isabel he he could be the bad guy he could regurgitate this whole version that you just said and say she's so good because Hillary could be like really upset that she's ruined his career and it's like, you know, you don't know. It's Isabella who's the villain, you know, and then all the flashbacks to prove it based on your career.

I don't know if you've seen Cobra Kai, but this could be the Cobra Kai of the Lizzie Wilder world. I saw some with Cobra Kai, yeah. Oh, man. That would be awesome. No, that would be so amazing if you or someone could make that sequel. Cause I mean, a lot of this theory, um, kind of stems from the fact that just like, I really like Paolo as a character and I don't want him to be the bad guy. Right. So I kind of twisted it until I could make him the good guy. I think Paolo and Lizzie, they fit so well together. They were great, right? They were really charming. Such chemistry. That's one of the things I was really disappointed about the C the series not happening was, you know, I was kind of wondering how are they going to, how are they going to deal with the movie? because they certainly used what dreams are made of and they referenced it in all the promotion. But I just wonder, like, who is Hilary's character now?

Who's Lizzie, someone who was on stage in Rome? Like, it's such a big ending, that movie. Like, how do you recover from that? Who do you become after that? I don't know. I think that's about it for my theory, though. I mean, from then on, it's basically just wrapping up. They end the song. They take a bow. Her parents get to see it. She kisses Gordo. And it's pretty much the end. One of the last things I want to say, Ethan Craft, I love his arc in this movie. Oh, yeah? He wants spaghetti. It is that he wants spaghetti. And he finally gets his spaghetti at the end. He gets his spaghetti right there. What I love is the tension to detail of it, though. Like, you look at him eat that spaghetti. He's a pro at, like, grabbing that spaghetti. And he actually rolls it in his spoon. Wraps it in his spoon. He knows what he's doing. You look at Kate trying to wrap her spaghetti. She, like, can barely do it, drips out of her mouth.

I mean, like, this, like, I just love the attention to detail. Like, this guy really does love spaghetti, and they knew that, and he finally gets it at the end. I think Ethan Kraft's character is actually pretty interesting. I like his character because he's not your typical hot guy in a teen girl movie. He's not a bad guy. No, he's, like, a super good guy. Like, he's really nice. Kind of the opposite of, well, I was going to say the opposite of Paolo. but what the movie, the general interpretation of Paolo. Paolo was really nice. Paolo never did anything mean to anyone. Like he was manipulative, yeah, but he was very honest about it. I truly believe that Paolo did nothing wrong. Paolo never lied and Paolo did not lip sync except for when he was forced to lip sync by Isabella, who was the true villain of this story. She lied, she manipulated and she left. She deserted Lizzie on stage. I hear you and you may have made me a believer and now you're going to make me watch the movie again with all of this in my brain and thinking, wow, this could be a different, this is a different movie than I thought it was.

And that is absolutely what we like to do on our podcast. You know, these movies that you watched a long time ago, you forgot about, watch them again and see them in a different light and they can be just as fun as they always were. That's absolutely the biggest praise anyone could ever say to me. So thanks for that. Well, thanks for listening to our theory. My pleasure. And you know what today's date is that we're recording is the actual release date of the movie. It's May 3rd. Wow. Really? Really? 18 years ago today, the movie was released. Well, that was totally intentional. Yeah, we planned it. Definitely. Did you? No, we did not plan that. We had no idea. Well, we always give our guests a moment if there's anything they want to promote or talk about, just anything at all, you can talk about whatever you want. No, I guess really I'm just working. I've been writing, and I have a sequel in the works for my very first movie, Trick, cleverly titled Trick 2.

Oh, good title. Yeah, so that got stalled a bit because of the pandemic and some other contractual issues, but we're hoping to get that back online soon. So hopefully we'll be shooting that sometime this year. We'll see. But that's really the main thing going on. That would be awesome. Everyone, you hear that? Go and see Trick 2 when it comes out. Give Jim Paul some love. Yeah. Watch his movies. He's a great director, a great writer, and a great guy for just being here. Oh, this is fun. I'm really blown away. I mean, that actually is really thoughtful, deep dive into the movie. And it's making me go, oh, my God, I got to watch it again. What the hell? You didn't have that hard a time proving it. And I think that's what's so funny. It's like you could totally use this to pitch a new version that uses this theory. Yeah. As what really happened in the movie. You know, you could totally use this as the director, writer.

Well, I'd have to give you credit. That would make my life. I'd be so happy. You guys are hilarious. This was fun. Thank you so much for listening. Music for this episode was provided by Christine. We always put a link in the description, so just click that link, watch the movie, and, you know, let us know if you think this is a good theory or not. Let us know what you think. If you like our podcast, don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts. And also follow us on Twitter at Popcorn Isn't Real. And remember, the popcorn isn't real.