Trending Now: This entertainment story covers the latest buzz, reactions, and updates surrounding Trending Now: Zoey Deutch Reveals Hilary Duff as Her First Celeb Crush (Exclusive) – Fans React..
NEED TO KNOW
- Zoey Deutch named Hilary Duff as one of her earliest celebrity crushes while speaking with PEOPLE at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival
- Deutch was at Sundance to premiere a new movie titled Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, which also stars Jon Hamm, John Slattery, Ken Marino and Ben Wang
- The movie follows Deutch as a bride-to-be who seeks out Hamm as part of a “free celebrity pass” arrangement with her fiancé
Zoey Deutch is revealing her surprising pick for her first celebrity crush: Hilary Duff!
“Oh s—. Who was my first celebrity crush? What came to mind is Hilary Duff,” Deutch, 31, tells PEOPLE at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, Jan. 25, as she premiered her new movie Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass. “I know that it’s not necessarily romantic. I just was like, that’s the coolest person.”
“[She] was like a friend,” Deutch adds of Duff, 38, who rose to fame as a teenager in the early 2000s with the Disney Channel series Lizzie McGuire and through her music career. “Also, she’s unbelievably gorgeous. I just was like I saw [her] and I was like, ‘That’s the coolest thing of all time.’ ”
While chatting with PEOPLE, Deutch also revealed Orlando Bloom in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise as another early celebrity crush of hers.
“I’m a younger sibling, so whatever my sister liked, and she really loved Orlando Bloom, and I do too, but it was more because I wanted to be like my big sister,” she adds. “I should have a better f—ing answer to this. Who doesn’t love Hilary Duff?”
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Deutch was at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 25 to support her new movie Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, which appropriately follows her title character on a journey to use a “hall pass” of sorts on real-life actor Jon Hamm after her fiancé uses his own “free celebrity pass” prior to their wedding, according to an official festival synopsis for the movie.
The film, directed by David Wain and co-written with Ken Marino (Wet Hot American Summer), also stars Hamm, 54, as well as Hamm’s Mad Men costar John Slattery, Marino, 57, Miles Gutierrez-Riley and Ben Wang.
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Deutch is an executive producer on the movie in addition to its lead actor. She told PEOPLE back in September that she began producing more movies in recent years “out of necessity” to find movies and roles she wanted to make, a sentiment she echoed on the red carpet at Sundance.
“It wasn’t something I was seeking out. It was just out of necessity of not feeling like I was getting and doing the things that I wanted to do,” she tells PEOPLE. “So this is definitely something that I really wanted to do and I feel really grateful to be a part of.”