Frankie Muniz Jokes Bryan Cranston Came in on First Day of FilmingMalcolm in the MiddleWearing 'a Little Speedo' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Frankie Muniz and Bryan Cranston on a 2005 episode of ‘Malcolm in the Middle’.Photo:20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection

20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection

The actor, 38 — who is teaming up with Spirit Airlines in honor of his “experience … being in the middle” and to promote their new#NotInTheMiddle"Go Comfy" Travel Option — says that his real-life experiences as Malcolm on the show have remained near and dear to him throughout his life.

Muniz fondly recalls his earliest memories alongside Cranston, who played his father, Hal, on the series.

Malcolm in the Middle in 1999.Saeed Adyani/20th Century Fox Tv/Kobal/Shutterstock

In fact, Muniz recalls that Cranston’s now-timeless role in the series came to be just hours before filming began on the pilot.

“We hadn’t met Bryan because they didn’t cast Bryan, or whoever was going to play [his character], until a few hours before we started filming,” he shares. “And the first scene we filmed is from the pilot where my mom is shaving him in the kitchen while we’re eating breakfast.”

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“And so Bryan Cranston comes in wearing a little Speedo, you know what I mean? And he’s like, ‘Hey, I’m going to be your dad,’ " Muniz jokingly recalls, adding that it was “just a memory that just sticks with you … because that was the beginning of moment that really changed my life as far as the show.”

Those familial tendencies and memorable moments extended to Muniz’s experiences with his other castmates as well.

“You end up doing seven years, 151 episodes with this other family and it’s just pretty cool,” he says. “We had so many fun memories together and fun times together. Like me and the boys really kind of became like brothers. We played together, we’d bicker together, we’d fight each other. We really felt like that … not sibling rivalry, but you have that sibling relationship. Because we were spending 12 hours a day with each other for seven years, you can’t help but be close.”

Bryan Cranston and Frankie Muniz in 2008.Michael Tullberg/Getty

Malcolmcostarred Jane Kaczmarek as the family matriarch, Lois, with Christopher Kennedy Masterson, Justin Berfield, Erik Per Sullivan and James and Lukas Rodriguez playing Muniz’s brothers.

Muniz adds in retrospect that, “Throughout the last 18 years since the show ended, [Cranston has] always been so kind to reach out and whatever I’m doing right. I’ve done a lot of things since the show ended. I went racing, I stopped racing. I joined a band, I opened an olive oil company. I did a lot of things. Now I’m racing again. And he’s always been so supportive of all those things.”

On Oct. 22,Muniz announced to PEOPLEthat he is joiningReaume Brothers Racingas a full-time driver of the No. 33 F-150 in the upcoming 2025 season of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. The actor began racing in 2004 and started his professional career in 2006.

“I grew up watching NASCAR,” he told PEOPLE. “I was a huge fan, but it’s not something I necessarily thought that I’d ever get the opportunity to do.”

source: people.com