Frankie Muniz Says Kid Actors Have ‘Insanely Negative Experiences’

Frankie Muniz made his bones in the 2000s as the star of the long-running sitcom Malcolm in the Middle, then parlaying his TV success into kid-friendly movies like Agent Cody Banks and Big Fat Liar. So is his kid going to follow in his footsteps? Not if Muniz has anything to say about it. 

“I would never let my kid go into the business,” Muniz told Pedestrian TV per The Hollywood Reporter. “And not that I had a negative experience because to be honest, my experience was 100 percent positive. But I know so many people, friends that were close to me, that had such insanely negative experiences.”

No one’s naming names, but catch an episode or two of Investigation Discovery’s Quiet on the Set series and you can guess what Muniz is getting at. Even when you take away the abusive adults, kids still have to deal with plenty of toxicity. “I just think it’s an ugly world in general,” Muniz explained. “I never cared about rejection, but there’s a ton of rejection.” Even when you’re talented, according to Muniz, that’s no guarantee you’ll get cast in a show or movie unless you win the hair-color lottery. “In the beginning that’s all it is. You know, me getting Malcolm in the Middle, maybe that was a little different than other shows, but like as a child actor, you get picked because you look like you could be the kid of the parents they picked.”

At the end of the day, it’s a numbers game, and the odds are astronomically against any kid who wants to try to be the next Disney Channel moppet. “I like to be honest about it,” Muniz said. “A million people in Hollywood who try won’t even — maybe they’re amazing actors. They could be the best actors on the planet, but they don’t even get the opportunity. So it’s not like going into a different industry where you can work really hard, you break into it, you can keep going and kind of work your way up the ladder. It’s really a lot of luck that plays into it.”

All of this explains why Muniz is no longer in the business, leaving Hollywood behind for a saner career with better odds of success — becoming a NASCAR race driver.