Do Chad Michael Murray and Hilary Duff's Characters From 'A Cinderella Story' End Up Together in a Sequel? The Actor Weighs In!

Chad Michael Murray is just as curious as the rest of us about what happened to his Cinderella Story character.

The former teen heartthrob, who played hunky Austin Ames, now 43, starred in the 2004 movie alongside Hilary Duff, who played his love interest, Sam Montgomery. In the romantic comedy, the two headed off to Princeton University together — but where are they now?

"People bring up Austin Ames all the time, and I would love to revisit him," the Freaky Friday actor explained in a recent interview when asked about a potential sequel.

"I feel like we see a lot of films with an unrealistic conclusion, where all of a sudden it's a happily ever after. But as Sam says at the end of the movie, she’s only in high school. What if it didn’t work out between her and Austin? Maybe they went their separate ways in college," he pointed out.

The One Tree Hill actor has an entire concept of a potential film that could see the two reconnect later in their lives. “She got married and had kids, and he went off to be a writer, which didn't work out,” Murray said. “Now he’s a high school English teacher and he has to revisit this whole thing because her daughter is in his class. I could come up with ten more versions, but to revisit that movie would be a total nostalgia fest for so many romantics out there.”

The father-of-three revealed earlier this year that his kiddo sat down to view the beloved film for the first time. "It's been awesome and now my daughter saw A Cinderella Story and so that was a really interesting and fun moment," he explained in a May 2024 interview. "She looked at me and she goes, 'You need to make another one of those, Daddy.'"

"Here you go, Hil. From me to you, let's do it," Murray made clear to the Lizzie McGuire star, now 37. "I think, as we know, things don't always work out so I think they went their separate ways and we bring them back now, post splits from their significant others, into a new Cinderella story."

The Hollywood star will be returning to another one of his beloved projects, the upcoming Freaky Friday sequel. "All of a sudden, the Chad Michael Murray character comes into the story, and I’m telling you, the entire room changed. Every woman in the room was leaning forward," Jamie Lee Curtis teased in a recent interview about Murray's reprisal of his character Jake.

Elle conducted the interview with Murray.

Entertainment Tonight conducted the May 2024 interview with Murray.