Former child actor and “Malcom in the Middle” star Frankie Muniz is taking his talents to the track full-time.
Muniz, who also headlined “Agent Cody Banks” and “Big Fat Liar,” revealed on Tuesday he’ll be racing in the 2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, driving the No. 33 F-150 for the Reaume Brothers Racing team.
“I don’t want to say it’s a long time coming, but this has been a dream of mine for forever,” he told PEOPLE.
Frankie Muniz at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tennessee in July. (Getty)
“I started with doing the open wheel route,” he continued. “I thought I was going to go IndyCar, kind of the Formula 1 route, but I always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to try NASCAR. … I grew up watching NASCAR. I was a huge fan, but it’s not something I necessarily thought that I’d ever get the opportunity to do,”
Muniz found fame at just 14 years old, starring as the title character in the beloved family sitcom “Malcom in the Middle,” which also starred Bryan Cranston. The show ran on Fox from 2000 to 2006, earning Muniz, now 38, nominations for Emmy and Golden Globe awards.
Shortly after the show’s wrap, Muniz took a step back from acting to better focus on racing, an interest he began to pursue in 2004.
While he’s eager to kick off the next leg of his life and is “focusing on being a racecar driver,” Muniz said he hasn’t left acting completely in the rearview.
“I hope to just prove to people that I can do both,” he told People. “That’s all I can do.”