So can you begin to imagine Malcolm in middle age?
After five seasons as the adolescent title character of Fox’s “Malcolm in the Middle,” Frankie Muniz has grown up.
But he’ll still play the gifted kid trapped at the center of a wacky family for at least another season.
“It gives (Malcolm) so much more stuff to play around with — driving, girls, high school problems, but he can still also do something a 12-year-old might do, and his mom can still hold up his underwear!” says the 18-year-old Muniz, whose character is now 16 or 17.
Series creator Linwood Boomer has been editing early episodes for the show’s syndication launch next fall and says, “Just seeing little Frankie with his big head and his high-pitched voice and his giant eyes, it was just like he was so cute. … He’s like a young man now.”
The show’s emphasis has shifted to the family ensemble, which now also includes glimpses of a new baby — the fifth boy.
Malcolm may soon be the oldest one left at home. Big brother Francis (Christopher Masterson) has long lived outside the chaotic home, headed by Hal (Bryan Cranston) and Lois (Jane Kaczmarek).
In the two-part season finale beginning tonight at 9, second son Reese (Justin Berfield) enlists in the Army because he’s upset that Malcolm has hooked up with his girlfriend. (The episode guest-stars Cloris Leachman and Betty White, reunited for the first time since “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”)
Talkative and refreshingly unguarded, considering the fame thrust on him at an early age, Muniz says fan attention is a little tougher than it used to be.
“It’s starting to get weird, which is weird five years after the show started,” he says. “I don’t mind it. I enjoy it, but it’s just odd, because I’m just me.”
Muniz is acutely aware that the transition from kid star to adult actor can be tricky, personally as well as professionally. He’s never been to a party and lives by himself in the Hollywood Hills.
“Maybe I’m afraid to go to parties, afraid to be normal, because I don’t want anything that would risk throwing everything I have away, like my career and stuff like that. … I’m having a great time just working on my cars in my garage.”
Recently, he raced in the celebrity event at the Grand Prix of Long Beach. Engine problems left him 14th in the qualifying run, but he managed to finish second.
Muniz also is developing a reality series for MTV called “Granted,” which he would host.
“I’ve been getting into trouble for saying too much about it, because it’s kind of like a ‘Punk’d.’ But it’s not ‘Punk’d’ because we are granting people’s wishes and dreams,” he says.
He’s also taking some vacation this summer, not using his “Malcolm” hiatus for filming features as he did when he made “Big Fat Liar” and “Agent Cody Banks” and its sequel.
“I’m at such a critical point in my career that I really need to find the perfect movie,” he says. “I can’t just do another normal movie just because it’s there. I need to do really good stuff, work with great actors.
“I’m not really scared, but it’s like I need to do this already because it’s going to the point where people wouldn’t believe it, where they will just see me as Malcolm, not as an actor able to do it.”
The birthday bunch
Actor Pierce Brosnan is 51. Actress Debra Winger is 49. Actress Mare Winningham is 45. Singer Janet Jackson is 38. Actress Tracey Gold is 35. Actor David Boreanaz is 33. Actress Tori Spelling is 31. Actor Marc John Jefferies (“The Tracy Morgan Show”) is 14.