Why did Frankie Muniz disappear from Hollywood?

If you were a kid in 2000, chances are Frankie Muniz was a mainstay of your television set. The New Jersey-born actor got his breakout at an early age, playing smart kid genius Malcolm on the raucous family sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle.” The Fox show was a hit, building its brand on the unstoppable shenanigans of the Wilkerson clan, a poor working family raising five boys. Malcolm, of course, was the middle child, often addressing the camera directly with his trademark sarcastic commentary.

“Malcolm in the Middle” made Muniz a household name, appearing in several high-profile films, and even headlining his own action film series as a young adult. Eventually, his star power rose so much that the majority of his TV movie roles were titled just “himself,” with him appearing as a version of Frankie Muniz on shows like “Arrested Development,” and “Don’t Trust the B*.” *** In Apartment 23, and Lizzie McGuire.

Eventually, Muniz’s time in the spotlight waned. He’s appeared in fewer than 10 films since 2010, and his TV roles these days tend to be one-off guest appearances. But rest assured: Muniz has been keeping busy, and he’s about to return to the screen in a big way.

Muniz’s first on-screen role came in 1997 when he was just 11 years old, and he landed the lead role in “Malcolm in the Middle” a few years later. The chaos-fueled hit lasted seven seasons, and during that time, Muniz was everywhere. He co-starred in Shawn Levy’s surprisingly funny comedy “Big Fat Liar” with Amanda Bynes and Paul Giamatti, headlined the series “Agent Cody Banks” opposite Hilary Duff, and even appeared as Buddy Holly in the movie “Agent Cody Banks.” A perfect musical parody of the biopic “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.” He also had a supporting role in the Nickelodeon hit “Fairly OddParents”.

The actor said recently Pedestrian TV He wouldn’t let his children become child actors because it’s “an ugly world in general,” but he explained that his previous experiences with fame were actually pretty decent. “To be honest, my experience was 100% positive. But I know a lot of people and friends who are close to me who have had crazy negative experiences,” he explained. He went through a very sad moment, when the police were called to his house due to an alleged domestic dispute in 2011. Per HuffPostMuniz denied the incident and no charges were brought against him.

Despite having great respect for his time as a child star, Muniz spoke in the final moments about feeling a little exploited. According to LooperMuniz once said that when “Malcolm” was finished, he had “done not much but work for 12 years.” Before the Agent Cody Banks sequel, he too He said about him He “really (needs) to do something different” after his years in comedy. At the time, he intended to take on more adult roles, but he soon found himself dedicated full-time to an unexpected passion.

In the Season 1 episode “Malcolm in the Middle,” Hal (Bryan Cranston) takes Malcolm and his brothers to a car race, and soon after, Muniz himself catches the racing bug. In 2001, Muniz, still a teenager, drove the safety car in the Daytona 500 race where Dale Earnhardt was killed, and he actually met Earnhardt just before his death. Despite the tragedy, Muniz continued to work in racing, winning the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race in 2005 and the Jovy Marcelo Trophy in 2008. Over the years, he raced in NASCAR and the ARCA Menards Series, and also drove full-time for several racing companies.

Muniz doesn’t just race, he actually considers it his second career. “I want racing to be my focus. It’s one of those things you have to do 100 percent. You can’t do it halfway,” he told SiriusXM’s NASCAR Radio.Per LadBible) a few years ago. “If I want to get to any level of NASCAR — ARCA, Trucks, whatever — I’m racing against people who have been doing this since they were 6 years old, and I have to do it fast.”

And based on his continued success and hard work on the racetrack over the years, he would likely consider that mission accomplished.

One of the most talked-about aspects of Muniz’s post-“Malcolm in the Middle” life came in 2017, when he appeared on “Dancing With The Stars.” At the time, footage from the show indicated that he was suffering from significant memory loss due to previous concussions and was unable to remember the year he was nominated for an Emmy for “Malcolm.” The story spread like wildfire, but in 2022, he clarified that it was a bit exaggerated. In the podcast “Steve ride or land!” He explained that he had nine concussions, but he also “didn’t want to blame the concussions or blame anything else” for any cognitive changes. According to Looper, Muniz suffered his first concussion when he was 7 years old while playing football, and later broke his back in a racing accident.

“If you look up my name, all it talks about is I’ve lost my memory, or I’m dying of strokes and all that stuff,” Muniz said. Fellow adrenaline junkie Steve-O. “(On Dancing with the Stars) I had to say, like, ‘I don’t really remember.’ But I didn’t say I didn’t remember.” anythingHe also explained that he was at one point misdiagnosed with mini-strokes, when it was later discovered that he had migraines with auras (the first of which appeared when he was riding a motorcycle).

“I just know what it means to be me. Or to have my own mind,” Muniz said He told people in 2019. “So, I just remember how bad my memory is when I see people coming up to me and saying, ‘Oh, do you remember when we did this? Do you remember we went on this trip to this country?'” To be reconciled with himself and his limited memory, he concluded: “I don’t remember it, but in my head, I don’t feel bad or sad about it.”

When he’s not racing or acting, Muniz still seems to have a busy schedule. “I started doing other things,” Muniz said He told Fox News Digital In 2022 when discussing his exit from Hollywood. He continued:

“I raced cars, joined a band, toured all over the place. I opened some businesses and got to experience a lot of cool things in my life, which now at this point has made me able to reflect and look back and be appreciative of the experience.”

Muniz performed as a drummer, worked as a band manager, invested in real estate, and bought an olive oil store with his wife, Paige Price. For every person. “I love doing payroll,” Muniz admitted to the outlet in 2019. “I love doing anything that has to do with finances. I’m a numbers guy, so this was a dream come true for me.” The couple married later that year and welcomed a son into their family in 2021.

Despite staying booked and busy over the past several years, Muniz has not really returned to his career as an actor in recent years. This seems set to change, as well A variety have been reported Recently, “Malcolm in the Middle” will get a Disney+ revival series at some point in the future. With only four episodes planned, the old installment doesn’t seem like it intends to overstay its welcome, and it’s honestly one of the only returns to the current world of television that I’ve been excited about in the past few years. Bryan Cranston and Gene Kaczmarek, who played Malcolm’s parents in the original series, are set to return to the series, as is original series creator Linwood Bomer.

It’s unclear at this point whether any of Malcolm’s siblings, played by Christopher Masterson, Justin Berfield, and Eric Pere Sullivan, will return for the sequel series, but the show will include Malcolm’s daughter. As Variety reports, the father-daughter duo “are drawn into the family chaos when Hal (Cranston) and Louis (Kaczmarek) ask him to attend their 40th wedding anniversary party.” Just a few weeks ago, Muniz revealed that he and “Breaking Bad” star Cranston we stay friends, says The Hollywood Reporter“He still contacts me every two weeks to check on me.”

Muniz is also set to star in the upcoming sci-fi film “Renner,” which co-stars Marcia Gay Harden, and a release date has not yet been announced.