12 min readFRANKIE MUNIZ STARTS our Zoom call with an apology.
It’s a Friday afternoon in March, and the 40-year-old actor is driving his rental Mercedes to Darlington Raceway, where he’ll suit up for a NASCAR Truck Series race later that night. As a professional driver for Ford, there’s not much downtime in his schedule, which is why he’s propped up his phone against the center console and is answering interview questions while navigating South Carolina traffic.
“Forgive me for being like this,” he says, glancing down at his camera.
Muniz might be busy watching the road, but he’s more than excited to chat. That’s because two decades after Malcolm in the Middle left the air, the beloved Fox sitcom (which ran for seven seasons between 1999 and 2006 and established Muniz as a massive, Emmy-nominated child star) is back, in the form of a four-episode Disney+ revival. Malcolm (Muniz)—once a child prodigy battling for supremacy amongst his brothers inside a chaotic, dysfunctional family—is now a father himself, single-parenting his teenage daughter Leah (Keeley Karsten) and dating Tristan (Kiana Madeira). The only catch? He has intentionally kept both of them a secret from his parents and siblings, hoping to build a calmer life without any of his past trauma.
Malcolm’s self-sustained bubble eventually bursts when his parents—Hal (Bryan Cranston) and Lois (Jane Kaczmarek)—demand he attend their 40th wedding anniversary party. It’s not long before the imposed reunion brings back the entire family—including siblings Francis (Christopher Kennedy Masterson), Reese (Justin Berfield), and Dewey (newcomer Caleb Ellsworth-Clark, replacing original actor Erik Per Sullivan)—mostly under one roof, along with all of the unpredictable, rambunctious energy that Malcolm had successfully avoided since graduating high school.
For Muniz, a longtime racing enthusiast who began driving professionally in 2006 (and entered the Truck Series in 2024), the revival was both a thrill and a scheduling nightmare. In order to pull off a six-week shoot in the spring of 2025, the Vancouver-based production filmed between Monday and Thursday, letting Muniz fly back to the East Coast to compete in five Truck Series events on the weekends. “I’d fly Thursday, race Friday, and fly back Saturday to be prepared as an actor and not be exhausted,” he says. “I was so excited that we got to do the show again. There wasn’t a world where I wasn’t going to be a part of it.”
With Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair debuting this week, Men’s Health spoke more with Muniz about his experience reuniting with his beloved character and old co-stars, playing a father for the first time, and balancing his dual professions. Perhaps it only makes sense that after our conversation, Muniz finished 18th out of 36 drivers at Darlington—exactly in the middle.
MEN’S HEALTH: What was your relationship with acting like when the Malcolm revival came along?
FRANKIE MUNIZ: I walked away from acting a little bit after Malcolm ended in 2006—I started racing and then I just started doing other things. But even throughout the last 20 years, I’ve still done acting things. It’s just not necessarily something I fully pursued. I always had a great time and liked being an actor, but I was focusing more of my effort elsewhere.
We had been talking about the Malcolm revival for over 10 years. We knew it was a possibility, and we were all so excited for it. When I found out it was officially happening, was the timing perfect? No, because I had just signed on full-time as a NASCAR driver. But it didn’t matter. I was going to do whatever it took, no matter how tired I was or how much work I had to put in, to do both.
MH: How was it seeing the entire family back for that first time?
FM: We hadn’t seen each other much since the show ended. I had seen Bryan a little bit, but not really anyone else. We had a small cast and crew reunion at the creator’s house in 2011, but I hadn’t seen Jane, I hadn’t seen Justin, and I hadn’t seen Chris in 14 or 15 years. I didn’t know if it would be awkward, you know? Like when you haven’t seen someone for a long time and you’re thinking, man, there’s so much to catch up on. But the minute we got together, I swear, it was as if not a single day had gone by.
When we did the table read, it was so weird. I was like, “Oh, this is home. This is where we belong. We know this 100 percent.” It was really fun to hear everybody being those characters again. My only complaint? It’s only four episodes. I wish we got to do so much more, because it was one of my favorite experiences of my life. I truly had a fun time. I’d never really put the label “actor” next to my name. I’d always say, “Oh yeah, I act. But I’m not really an actor—I do all these other things too.” But after we finished the reboot, I was truly proud to be called an actor.
MH: What’s it like stepping back into a character you only really knew as a kid, especially now that you're an adult and have a son yourself?
FM: As a kid, I’d show up and—I don’t want to say I just said the words, because I obviously put thought into it—but I kind of just said the words. That’s all I had to do, and it worked. As an adult, you think more about the role and what it means. And the weird thing with this is usually when you’re making something, you have no idea if anyone’s going to watch it. But now, 20 years later, I’ve had millions of people come up to me and tell me how much they love the show, how much it means to them and their family, how it got them through a dark time. They still watch it. They’re showing it to their kids. I have such a greater appreciation now for what I was a part of, because I’ve heard those stories.
The first time I watched the entire show was 2017. I hadn’t seen most of the episodes before that, and I realized everything about the show was different from what I thought we were making. When you’re in it, you just do it. You don’t see all the other parts, you don’t see it cut together. Jumping back in as an adult, I was thrilled. I couldn’t believe how natural Malcolm felt to me. I don’t want to call it easy, but I had this moment of, Okay—yeah, this is who I was meant to play. And Malcolm goes through, I think, every emotion on the planet—literally every emotion—throughout these four episodes. That was really fun to play in such a short amount of time.
MH: Malcolm makes the dramatic choice to avoid his family and keep details about his teenage daughter secret. When you read the script, what did you make of that defense mechanism?
FM: When I watched all the episodes again in 2017, the comedy felt different. There were characters I didn’t fully understand at the time—not that I didn’t like them, but I didn’t really care about them that much when we were filming—and they ended up becoming some of my favorites. I remember saying that if you ranked the family from favorite to least favorite, Malcolm was actually my least favorite. He wasn’t really the funny one. He was always frustrated, always annoyed, always feeling like the world was out to get him—his parents, his brothers, everyone was holding him back. He was just kind of negative. But that’s what made Malcolm, Malcolm.
When I read the reboot, I loved seeing that he’s in a better place. Mentally, he’s in a good spot when you find him. He’s got his life together. He has a great job, this amazing girlfriend who really loves him, an incredible daughter, and a strong relationship with her. On the surface, everything’s going well. Then you realize the way he got there was by staying completely away from his family. And you’re like, “Whoa—that’s kind of intense.” But if you think back to the original run, that’s exactly what he believed. In his mind, they were the thing holding him back.
I didn’t know where we were going to find Malcolm. I didn’t know if he’d still be stuck in that constant struggle, even though he clearly had the intelligence and ability to succeed. Even in the final episode back in 2006, he gets that incredible job offer right out of high school, and his mom doesn’t let him take it. She tells him he has to struggle, work his way up, understand success by earning it—and even losing it—because someday he’s going to be President of the United States. That’s a lot to put on a kid. And in his head, there was no way he could live up to that. But what’s interesting is the pressure he carried actually helped shape him into a really solid person.
MH: Did you relate to Malcolm's decision to extricate himself and have some separation, considering you wanted some initial space from acting after the original Malcolm?
FM: I never really thought about it that way. I can relate to that. I mean, on a personal level, I'm guilty. I would say my worst quality as a person is I'm really bad at communication. And sometimes I do feel like it’s easier to just not respond. And unfortunately, I've lost a lot of friendships and I've even lost touch with close members of my family. Not by choice—because it is my choice, but not intentionally. I've always just been so focused on the task at hand. And I always go, “All right, when I'm done with this, I'm going to have time and I'm going to reach out and I'm going to be a friend and I'm going to catch up and I'm going to ask about them.” And unfortunately, I never get through my list of things. I've been saying it for 20 years: “I'm almost there. I'm almost done.”
I definitely want to be better at it. But at the same time, it's allowed me to focus on the things I want to succeed at—which is similar to Malcolm. There's the good and the bad of it, which you see in the Malcolm episodes, too. I'm still going through my journey. I'm figuring out how to handle it.
MH: Bryan Cranston is doing such incredible physical work in these four episodes. What do you remember about your relationship growing up with him? Did he become like another father figure in your life?
FM: One hundred percent. From the minute I met him, he was always so kind and caring. And it wasn't just me—he was that way to everybody. He genuinely showed up and was so happy to put in 150 percent. And if he ever wasn't, you never knew it. I remember always looking up to him in that sense. I feel like everyone who's worked with Bryan would probably say the same thing. He shows up. He's dedicated. He puts in 100 percent. And then post Malcolm, obviously, he’s had so much success and he's continued to become, like, a Hollywood god, essentially, right? He's one of the greatest actors ever and had such an amazing career. I went from acting to racing to… I was in a band, I owned an olive oil company, back to racing. Whatever I was doing, even in all his crazy success and crazy busy schedule, he's always reached out to check in and supported whatever I was doing. And I admire that. The fact he can find the time and make me feel like he cares, even if it's for five minutes every couple of months since the show ended… I love that. He’s a father figure who does truly care about what I'm up to, and wants to see me succeed.
MH: In some ways, did you feel like you could take on a similar role with Keeley, now that you were her dad in this show?
FM: It’s funny, I remember meeting her and thinking the same thing. I wanted her to leave this set and have that same image of me as a person and actor and just have a great relationship. It’s the first time I’ve ever played a father. There’s a little bit of a different bond there than just another actor on the set. You want to protect her a little more. I feel like so many actors, kid-actors especially, start so excited, and then find success on a show and do movies, and you have everybody telling you how great you are all the time. It’s easy to get caught in that cycle. And so I talked with her mom about what I experienced and what she could expect. And hopefully I instill things in her that keep her not grounded, but grateful. When you have an opportunity as an actor, you’re so lucky. I think people just start to take it for granted.
I wanted to show what I’ve learned, having had crazy success as a kid. Not saying it went away, but, like, it went away, post-Malcolm. And then I built my way back with a different mindset and a different appreciation for opportunity, this time getting to be on set and part of something I know people are going to love. One of my biggest pet peeves is when actors leave a show mid-show. They’re like, “I want to go do movies.” Do you understand how lucky you are? You won the lottery. Just enjoy it, because you’re gonna look back and go, “Why did I leave?”
MH: What was it like navigating between acting and racing each week?
FM: It was definitely difficult. I’m grateful for everybody at the show involved in working around my racing schedule. I don’t know if there’s ever been an actor who’s in every episode, every scene of a show, who’s allowed to go race cars at 200 miles an hour on their off-day. It’s usually something you have to sign a paper saying you won’t do—that you won’t go skydiving, you won’t ride motorcycles, you won’t do all these things.
All my competitors in racing—it’s a full-time job for them. All they do is eat, breathe, and sleep thinking about how they can be a better, faster, more prepared race car driver. Then you add in the fact that I have to fly across the country, I’m filming 12–15 hours a day, still keeping up with my workout regimen, still keeping up with watching tape and going through data, talking to my crew, doing all the things I would normally do to prepare for the race. It was definitely a lot.
Granted, I don’t want to look back at the show—or even those races I did during filming—and go, “Man, I wish I tried harder.” That motivated me to give it my all. I’ve learned to not look at my schedule and let it scare me, or intimidate me. I’m motivated by it.
MH: You've been in the NASCAR Truck series for a couple of years now. How would you describe your relationship with other drivers? Do you feel like you’ve earned their respect?
FM: Initially, when I came back into racing, people looked at it almost like a novelty. Like, “Oh, he’s gonna come in as a hobby.” But they can’t say that when you start beating them. Granted, my results in the truck series have been a bit of a mixed bag. We’ve had some great races, we have some great battles, and I’ve had a lot of bad luck. I’m not making an excuse, but we’ve had so many races where things out of my control have happened to the car engine.
I feel like I have so much unfinished business in the racing world. Like, I’m not at all satisfied with what I’ve done—even from a results standpoint. I’ve still got a lot to prove. I’m not friends with the other drivers, if that makes sense. I’m a lot older than most of them, so I’m not hanging out with 19-year-old competitors. I hang out with their dads or their moms. But it’s a dog-eat-dog world. I can say this: There’s a few drivers I’m more friendly with. If there’s an autograph thing, I’ll sit with them. Or before we do intros, we all go on a stage or backstage, you go toward the same few people.
When it comes to racing against those few people I have that close relationship with, I find myself going, “I don’t want to hit them.” Where with others I’m like, “I’ll hit that dude. I don’t even know who he is.” You have to have that mindset to go out and kill. So, I don’t necessarily want to have close relationships with everybody.
MH: It's fair to say Ford is not going to be doing a Malcolm watch party for the premiere.
FM: I mean, I hope my competitors watch Malcolm when it comes out! On April 10th, the day the show gets released, I'm driving the Malcolm in the Middle truck at Bristol. They're going to know because they're going to see my face and my family's face blasted on my truck when I pass them. Hopefully beating them doesn't put a bad taste in their mouth when they're watching the show later on.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Jake Kring-Schreifels is a sports and culture writer based in New York. His work frequently appears in The Ringer, GQ.com, and InsideHook, among other publications. You can follow him on X at @jakeks19.
