“Yes, no, maybe, I don’t know…”. Surely you remember the beginning of ‘Malcolm in the middle’, the series that was not only Bryan Cranston’s first important role, but also launched a young roguish-faced actor to fame that he was about to make a name for himself in Hollywood and would be known as “Malcolm” for decades. But what became of him? What happened to Frankie Muniz?
You’re not the boss of me
Frankie Muniz was not exactly a son of artists, but a kid who grew up in north carolina in the midst of the shattered marriage between a nurse and a restaurateur. The breath of good luck in his life would come playing Timmy in a children’s theater version of ‘A Christmas Carol’, because A scout discovered him at the age of eight and his career began to take off.
In fact, at fifteen, and after going through a few television series, was already prepared to star in the pilot of a new comedy for Fox and, at the same time, a movie: ‘My dog Skip’. If he didn’t succeed, let it not be for not trying. ‘Malcolm in the middle’ was an immediate and absolute success, with more than 15 million viewers per episode in the United States, and ‘My dog Skip’ was not far behind: it cost just 4.5 million dollars and pocketed 35.5. No wonder: It premiered just a week after the series and people were curious to see who this new actor came out of nowhere.
During ‘Malcolm in the middle’ his career was unbeatable: ‘Fat Liar’, ‘Super Agent Cody Banks’ (alongside Hillary Duff) and its sequel they gave the impression that it was everywhere. So much so that the sixth season of Malcolm was a flop and movies like ‘My sexiest year’ didn’t even make it out of very minority festivals. After appearing in ‘Extreme movie’, which for some reason was written by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, The Lonely Island and Will Forte (and despite everything it was horrible), Muniz decided to get away from the cinema for a while to focus on his true passion: racing cars.
Thunder days
In 2001, shortly after starting ‘Malcolm in the middle’ (and turning 16), the actor drove the pace car of the Daytona 500 and had the opportunity to Dale Earnhardt, one of the great legends of the motor world. A few hours later, Earnhard would die in an accident in that same race. Instead of taking it as a macabre warning, Muniz continued on his own: in 2004 he entered his first serious race, the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race, where celebrities competed against professionals. Formula 1 racer (with a tremendously funny name) Max Papis won but Muniz came in a decent seventh place. Of course, this just gave him wings. Not literally.
The following year he was the top-ranked star, in an honorable third place. The rest of his racing career has gone from not qualifying for Formula BMW USA to being inside the top ten of all the races he did in 2009. Afterwards, his interest wanedbut despite everything he has continued running and until this year he has participated in some exhibition.
When he saw that racing cars was not his thing, decided to try his luck with music, more specifically as a drummer for the group Kingsfoil, from which a few video clips came out where, oh surprise, the drummer appeared as much as the singer. Coincidence, surely. Two years later, Muniz left the group but became the manager the one they later formed, Astro Lasso, which sounds exactly the same to you as Kingsfoil: you’re welcome.
Can you repeat the question?
In 2017, Frankie Muniz confessed his biggest health problem: I had amnesia, and, in fact, he did not even remember the moments filming ‘Malcolm in the middle’. Rumor had it, it was Bryan Cranston who called him every so often to remind him how much fun they had had during that time. Muniz later rectified and clarified that he did not exactly have amnesia, but simply memory lapses caused by all the blows to the head he took as a teenager. She has also had intellectual aura problems, prior to an epilepsy attack. Come on, all is well at the Muniz’s.
During these years away from music and (more or less) from cars, the former child star opened with his wife, Paige Price, a small olive oil and vinegar store in Arizona that they ended up selling during the pandemic, coinciding with the future birth of their first child: it is comforting to see that Muniz has found peace in the couple after in 2011 you will be caught with a gun pointed at your own head in the middle of an argument with his then-fiancée Elycia Marie. Oh love.
To all this, it is not that Muniz has stopped acting or being a star. In fact, came third in the twenty-fifth edition of ‘Dancing with the stars’made a parody of superheroes in the direct-to-DVD ‘Pizza man’ and has found a place to appear in the third part of ‘Sharknado’, although his most repeated role in series like ‘Harley Quinn’, ‘Preacher’, ‘The mysteries of Laura’ or ‘Don’t trust the bitch on apartment 23’ is that of, well… Frankie Muniz. Nobody said that returning to stardom was easy.