Frankie Muniz shared the memory of meeting his Malcolm in the Middle on screen, Father Bryan Cranston for the first time, and it was in a skin-colored Speedo.
Talk to PEOPLE Before the series resumed, Muniz, 40, recalled that Cranston was the last actor to be confirmed, with his role as father Hal only being finalized on the morning of their first shoot together.
“The first scene we filmed was from the pilot in which Jane [Kaczmarek]or Lois, shave Hal’s back,” Muniz said.
“And he came in with a skin-colored Speedo and he was like, ‘Hey, boys, I’m going to be your dad.'” He paused before adding, “Obviously pretty awkward.”
Muniz was only 13 at the time, already excited by the thrill of landing the lead role.
Meeting the rest of the cast had been exciting enough, but Cranston’s entrance was something else entirely. What no one could have predicted at the time was how central Hal’s character would become to the series.
“Hal was originally supposed to be such a small character…kind of like an afterthought,” Muniz said. “But Bryan is such an incredible actor and he made the show, I think.”
Behind the scenes, the cast quickly settled into something that truly felt like a family, pranks included.
They pinned clothespins to each other’s backs, played the circle game with enough force to leave bruises, and fought over a foosball table until the production team replaced it with a ping-pong table.
“It was a bad idea, they couldn’t stop us from filming,” Muniz remembers. “We probably could have gone professional.”
Saying goodbye to it all seven years and 151 episodes later was harder than Muniz anticipated.
The cast was informed about a month in advance that the series was ending, which he said helped. But nothing really prepared him for the final day.
“It had no effect on me like I thought it would until the last shot on the last day,” he said. As the cameras rolled on the final scene, two or three hundred crew members who had worked on the series over the years gathered on set.
“I remember starting [to cry] when they started rolling, and it wasn’t for the stage, but it worked really well for the moment. It was really hard to say goodbye.”
Closing night brought its own quiet emotions. Muniz and Jane Kaczmarek were the last two people to leave the soundstage that evening.
“It hit you in that moment, like, wait, everything I’ve known for most of my life…is ending,” he said.
Malcolm in the Middle: Life is Always Unfair is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.
