Why Frankie Muniz disappeared from Hollywood

If you were a kid in the year 2000, chances are Frankie Muniz was a mainstay on your TV. The New Jersey-born actor made his breakthrough at a young age playing brainy child genius Malcolm in the rambunctious family sitcom Malcolm in the Middle. The Fox show was a major hit that built its brand on the rampant shenanigans of the Wilkerson clan, a working poor family raising five boys. Malcolm, of course, was the middle child, and often addressed the camera directly with his trademark sardonic comments.

Malcolm in the Middle made Muniz a household name, and he appeared in several high-profile films and even headlined his own action franchise as a young adult. Eventually, his star power grew so much that most of the roles in his television filmography are simply titled “Himself,” where he appeared as some version of Frankie Muniz in such series as Arrested Development, Don’t Trust the B* ** * in qt. 23″ and “Lizzie McGuire”.

Eventually, however, Muniz’s time in the spotlight dwindled. Since 2010, he has appeared in fewer than 10 films, and currently his television roles tend to be one-off guest appearances. But rest assured, Muniz has been busy, and he’ll be back on screen in a big way soon.

Muniz’s first screen role came in 1997 when he was just 11 years old, and a few years later he landed the lead role in Malcolm in the Middle. The mayhem-fueled hit ran for seven seasons, and Muniz was everywhere during that time. He starred in Sean Levy’s wildly funny comedy Big Liar with Amanda Bynes and Paul Giamatti, headlined the Agent Cody Banks franchise alongside Hilary Duff, and even appeared as Buddy Holly in the perfect musical biographical parody Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. He also had a supporting role on the Nickelodeon hit Fairly OddParents.

The actor recently told Pedestrian television he wouldn’t let his kids become child actors because it’s “an ugly world in general,” but he clarified that his own past experience with fame was actually pretty decent. “To be honest, my experience was 100 percent positive. But I know a lot of people, friends who were close to me, who had such a crazy negative experience,” he explained. He had one very public moment when the police were called to his home in 2011 over an alleged domestic dispute. According to HuffPostMuniz denied the incident and charges have not been filed.

Despite being held in high regard for his time as a child star, Muniz spoke essentially about feeling a little out of sorts. According to LooperMuniz once said that when “Malcolm” ended, he “did nothing but work for 12 years.” Ahead of the sequel “Agent Cody Banks” and he told about that he “really (needs) to do something else” after his years in the comedy industry. At the time, he had more adult roles in mind, but he soon devoted himself entirely to the unexpected passion.

In the season 1 episode “Malcolm in the Middle”, Hal (Bryan Cranston) took Malcolm and his brothers to a stock car race, and soon after, Muniz himself caught the racing bug. In 2001, while still a teenager, Muniz drove the safety car at the Daytona 500 where Dale Earnhardt died, and he actually met Earnhardt just before his death. Despite the tragedy, Muniz continued to race, winning the 2005 Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race and the 2008 Jovi Marcelo Award. He raced in NASCAR and the ARCA Menards Series over the years, and he managed full-time for several racing companies.

Muniz doesn’t just race, he considers it his second career. “I want my focus to be on racing. It’s one of those things you have to do 100 percent. You can’t do it half-heartedly,” he told SiriusXM’s NASCAR radio (according to LadBible) several years ago. “If I want to get to any level of NASCAR — ARCA, Trucks, whatever — I’m going up against people who have been doing it since they were six years old, and I have to do it fast.”

Based on his consistent success and hard work on the race track over the years, he can probably consider that mission accomplished.

One of the most talked about aspects of Muniz’s post-Malcolm in the Middle life came to light in 2017 when he appeared on Dancing with the Stars. At the time, footage from the show revealed that he had significant amnesia due to previous concussions and could not remember the year he was nominated for an Emmy for Malcolm. The story spread like wildfire, but he clarified in 2022 that it was a little overblown. In the podcast “Steve-O’s Wild Ride!” he explained that he’s had nine concussions, but he also doesn’t “want to blame concussions or blame anything else” for any cognitive changes. According to Looper, Muniz suffered his first concussion at age seven while playing football and later broke his back while racing.

“When you look up my name, all it says is that I have no memory or I’m dying of a stroke and all that stuff,” Muniz said. fellow adrenaline junkie Steve-O. “(On ‘Dancing with the Stars’) I had to say, ‘I really don’t remember.’ But I didn’t say I didn’t remember anything.” He also explained that at one point he was misdiagnosed with a mini-stroke and later learned that he had migraines with aura (the first of which occurred while he was riding a motorcycle).

“I only know what it’s like to be myself. Or have a brain of your own,” Munis told People in 2019. “So I’m just reminded of how bad my memory is when people I see come up to me and say, ‘Oh, do you remember when we did that? Do you remember when we went on that trip to that country?” be at peace with yourself and the limitations of your memory by concluding, “I don’t remember anything about it, but in my head I don’t feel bad or sad about it.”

When he’s not racing cars or acting, Muniz seems to keep a busy schedule. “I started doing other things,” Muniz said said Fox News Digital in 2022 while discussing his retirement from Hollywood. He continued:

“I’ve raced cars. I’ve joined a band. I’ve toured everywhere. I’ve opened several businesses and I’ve had to experience so many amazing things in my life that now at this point made me think, look back and be so appreciative of the experience.” .

Muniz has performed as a drummer, worked as a band manager, invested in real estate, and even purchased an olive oil store with his wife, Paige Price. on people. “I like doing payroll,” Muniz admitted to the publication in 2019. – I like to do anything related to finance. I’m a numbers person, so this was like a dream come true for me.” The couple married later that year and had a son in 2021.

Although he has been busy and busy for the past few years, Muniz has not returned to his acting career in recent years. It looks like that may be about to change Variety reported recently, sometime in the future, Malcolm in the Middle will be revived as a Disney+ series. With only four episodes planned, it seems like the legacy sequel has no intention of hanging around, and it’s honestly one of the few returns to an existing television world I’ve been excited about in the last few years. Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek, who played Malcolm’s parents in the original series, are set to return to the series, as is original series creator Linwood Boomer.

It’s unclear at this point if any of Malcolm’s siblings, played by Christopher Masterson, Justin Burfield, and Eric Perr Sullivan, will return for the sequel, but the show will feature Malcolm’s own daughter. According to Variety magazine, the father-daughter pair “become embroiled in family chaos when Hal (Cranston) and Lois (Kaczmarek) demand his presence at their 40th wedding anniversary party.” Just a few weeks ago, Muniz showed that he and “Hardcore” star Cranston stay friends tells The Hollywood Reporter“He still checks in with me every couple of weeks (to) check on me.”

Muniz is also set to star in the upcoming sci-fi film Rainer , which stars Marcia Gay Harden and has yet to be announced for a release date.