After finding fame as a child star, Frankie Muniz decided to move away from Hollywood.
The actor is best known for playing Malcolm on the sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle,” which aired from 2000 to 2006. Starring Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek, the show tells the story of a dysfunctional family and their comic adventures. The series won seven Emmys and led to numerous movie roles for the 36-year-old.
However, Muniz told Fox News Digital that stepping back from the spotlight as he got older saved him from the dreaded child star curse that has plagued many others in the film and television industry.
“When I was on ‘Malcolm,’ I was so excited to work on a show,” he explained. “But also along the same lines, when the show ended, I kind of left the company for a little while. I started doing other things. I was racing cars. I joined a band. I was touring everywhere. I opened businesses and got to experience so many amazing things in my life, which made me reflect, look back and appreciate the experience.”
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“Now I thought about it,” he continued. “Because…so many people go down the wrong path, whether it’s drugs, alcohol, whatever. And I think for a lot of people it’s probably hard to go from being so successful to being a young age where you always have “Oh, I love you” people, and everyone wants you here and there. And then it starts to fade. And I think a lot of people are trying to replace the missing feeling of [being] wanted with something else. And that’s really a negative for a lot of people. Whereas for me, I was always super focused on what I was doing right now because I wanted to be the best at whatever I was doing. And that’s how I am.”
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In 2006, Muniz retired from acting to focus on professional racing car driving. He competed in the Formula BMW USA championship that year, then competed in the ChampCar Atlantic championship from 2007 to 2009. In 2009, Muniz finished fourth in the championship standings. He had two races to go before a season-ending injury led to several surgeries. Today, running is still part of Muniz’s life.
Since then, Muniz has taken on many acting roles. But these days, he’s enjoying a blast from the past. VH1 has revived its early 2000s reality series “The Surreal Life.” The show, which originally aired from 2003 to 2006, has a star-studded new lineup that includes Muniz, as well as August Alsina, CJ Perry, Dennis Rodman, Kim Coles, Stormy Daniels and Manny MUA.
“I watched the show originally when it aired in the early 2000s,” Muniz said. “And it was a crazy show. It definitely puts people, celebrities out of their comfort zone, into situations that they normally wouldn’t be in. But along the same lines, I thought it would be a really fun experience for me to learn about I didn’t know what to expect. It was very nerve wracking to walk into this house because you don’t know who the other roommates will be. You don’t know what to expect. have no idea what they’re going to make you do the show and what it will be like to have cameras literally filming you 24/7.”
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“I can say that it was both one of the greatest experiences of my life and also one of the craziest experiences of my life,” he insisted. “It was definitely an interesting and fun learning experience.”
And Muniz said he quickly bonded with some of his castmates.
“I never drank,” he said. “It’s something you see in the house. Me, Manny MUA and Kim Coles, we immediately bonded in this…house because none of us drank. So we’re ‘The Sober Three’ . And we had an amazing connection and got really, really close because of it.”
Muniz is also happy to be back home for a special reason. His wife Paige Price, who previously opened up about her struggles getting pregnant, welcomed their first child in 2021, a son named Mauz.
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But life hasn’t always been happy for the star. In 2017, it was revealed that Muniz was facing memory loss. He said his account had been “exaggerated” by several media outlets.
“It’s an interesting story,” Muniz explained. “I’ve had I think nine concussions in my life. [due to sports], which is a good sum. I think a lot of the memory talk or my lack of memory talk was…maybe overdone, more than it really is. I think when I think now why there are so many things I maybe forget, or I forget things I did when I was a kid [because] I was doing so much. I was working maybe 13 hours a day and flying all over the world. You know, I was always really busy and it’s hard to absorb it all. It’s hard to take it all in.”
“I started thinking about it and I was like, ‘Do you remember all the days in high school? No,'” he shared. “You remember certain moments, what I do, in my career in my past… I may not have the best memory, but I think I have more memory than what I think is described in some media for sure.”
With reboots all the rage in Hollywood, Muniz said he would “love” to see “Malcolm in the Middle” again today with the original cast.
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“When I was shooting the show, obviously I was a kid,” he said. “We did seven seasons, 151 episodes. I didn’t really watch the show when it aired, but since then I’ve been watching it with my wife. We [watched] all 151 episodes… I realized, ‘Wow, that’s what we were doing.’… I can separate myself from being on it and watching it as a fan. I would like to know what the family is doing.”
“I know Bryan Cranston is really into the idea and he’s writing the script and getting everything going. So there could be something. I would be 100 per cent.”
“But I don’t know – we’ll see what happens,” he teased.
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