Uncut with Frankie Muniz. "Everybody Sacrificed Everything To Make My Dream and My Life Happen"

Joining the pod today for an exclusive interview is the wonderful Frankie Muniz; the beloved child actor who starred as Malcolm in "Malcolm in the Middle" and has now made a name for himself as a NASCAR driver. Britt and Frankie were campmates in the "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here jungle and it was so nice to continue those in depth and personal conversations with Frankie.

We spoke about:

• How Frankie got into acting and landed the role of Malcolm at just 8 years old.
• How getting into acting isn’t an exact process. It’s likely due to chance
• The rules of child acting and how schooling worked
• The sacrifices that his family made to enable his career to exist
• Child actor finances -the reality of child actor earnings and financial management
• Frankie's experience with his manager stealing money
• Avoiding rebellion: Why Frankie didn't follow the typical rebellious path of many child stars.
• Transition to racing & what inspired him to switch gears and pursue a career in NASCAR.
• The type of dad he wants to be

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands
were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders
past and present, Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land.
This episode was recorded on Cameragle Land.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut.
I'm Laura, I'm Brittany, and today we have an interview
that I'm super pumped to bring you guys. So you
most of you should know that I was on I'm
a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here a couple of
months ago.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
If you're new to the podcast, I was on I'm a.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Celebrity, Get Me out of Here a couple of months ago.
But one of my castmates on their Frankie Munez aka
Malcolm in the Middle. He was probably the number one
person from the show that you guys requested for an interview,
and he was somebody that I was so looking forward
to getting to know on the show. And he didn't
disappoint me, like he was nothing like what I thought

(00:56):
he would be as somebody that was in the spotlight
from eight years old became the most bankable teen actor.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
He was like the biggest child star of his time, biggest.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Child star of his time, like he was the last
of the famous child actors before social media kind of
really took off and people had access to people in
other capacities. So he was that level where everyone wants
to know everything about you, but no one can access you,
so they want to know it more.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
So.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
I found this chat so interesting because one thing that
really stood out to me when he was talking on
I'm seb to get me out of here was the
fact that he has maintained quite a and obviously it's
not a normal life because he's stupidly wealthy, but it's
normal in the fact that I think we often think
that child stars can go off the rails or they

(01:43):
can lead very complicated lives when they are blessed or
cursed with so much fame so young and Frankie Munez,
he is completely sober.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
He's never done drugs in his life.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
He's he's never tried it, which is almost insane when
you've been living in a world that's so.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Exposed to it.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
But he talks about why he thinks that for him
that was such a different experience. He also worked alongside
some child stars who have had really complicated journeys into adulthood,
and he talks a little bit about why he thinks
that's the case. Also some things that.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
I found really interesting too, Like he was really honest
about the sacrifices his family had to make for him
to be able to do what he did, Like as
an eight year old, you're not thrust into stardom with
that commitment from your family, and it definitely did take
a toll on his family. And then he was really
open about some things he said he has never spoken about,
and that was somebody really close to him ripped him off,

(02:36):
like stole a lot from him, and he never spoke
about it. And he told me he never wanted to
speak about it because he wanted to pretend it didn't happen,
Like you know, when something such such such a betrayal
that you want to bury it and move on. And
then the idea of being this wildly famous child star
and then completely pivoting your career when you're older in
life to turn into a NASCAR race car driver, like such.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
An interesting life.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
One thing though that you mentioned, Britt, but I still
find it so fascinating the sacrifice that his family made.
But in particular it was the realization that he has
recently had around the sacrifice that his sister had to
make as the non famous sibling, as the sibling whose
life was pretty normal, she went and lived with other
relatives so that his mum could go and be with

(03:24):
him whilst he was acting and following his career as
a young child. And it really does make your question,
how would that impact you as the sibling of the
rich and famous sister or brother. I can only imagine
that that would be such an incredibly challenging thing for
his sister to go through, And he speaks about it
really beautifully. He also speaks about it as though he

(03:45):
has come to that realization as an adult, because when
you're a kid, you don't really realize the sacrifices that
everyone around you is making.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah, and interestingly, the discoveries that he has made since
becoming a dad himself. So it's an amazing episode. I'm
sure you're gonna love him as much I love him.
Let's get into it. Welcome to life on cut.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
I'm happy to be here with you. How are you
guys doing?

Speaker 2 (04:06):
I mean, I feel like now most of Australia they
have a real understanding of who you are. If you
watched I'm a celebrity, Get me out of here. If
you guys all watch brit On there, we saw so
much of you as well. And BRIT's been talking about
this accidentally unfiltered story, that you have an embarrassing story.
Normally they're filthy, but yours is very wholesome and so
I'm excited for which makes sense, right, like the childhood

(04:27):
style having a very wholesome story.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
What is your accidentally unfiltered aw man?

Speaker 4 (04:33):
So I went to Scotland. Kind oft have been fourteen
fifteen years old, right, so that time where like you're
trying to impress people, You're trying to be cool, and
I was on this show. I don't know what show
it was, but it was like a morning show for
kids and teens and every celebrity that they had go
on the show. They had this skateboard on the ground

(04:54):
and you'd put a pie on the end of the
skateboard and you you know, step on it and shoot
the pie into this guy onto the wall and like
there's a list of all these celebrities, right, so, like
you know, n Sync was there and they got it
this high and Britney spears was there and she got
it this high, and me, being like the ultra competitive
person I am, I'm like, oh, I'm I'm beating everybody,

(05:16):
like there's no doubt. I'm not taking this lightly. I'm
gonna be the champion of this pie shooting contest whatever
it is. So there's this huge studio audience, everyone's cheering,
and it's my turn to do it, and I step
up and I rear back and I go as hard
as I can and I don't know how, but I
kind of missed the skateboard enough to where the pie

(05:39):
just fell on its side, like right next to it,
like it didn't go anywhere. But the worst part was
I completely tore my acl meniscus all that. So everyone's
making fun of me, thinking like ah, and I'm like
literally on the ground crying on National Live on TV,
and I just remember that was like on see like

(06:00):
the most gut wrenching thing. I had to be carried
off the stage, you know what I mean, like live
on TV. And that's always stuck with me as like
one of those moments that like I need to go
back there just to like redo it because my face
is still on the ground like right next to the skateboard,
like that's all I got.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
It's one thing to embarrass yourself and not be able
to flip the pie, but it's another thing to have
not flipped it and torn all your ligaments and not
walk for the next six months on national television.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
That's not really a flex for the ladies, is it.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
It's not you know, when you're fourteen and fifteen, like
moments like that kill you, you know what I mean.
I don't know, Like I think there was like there
was this Scottish singer that was on the show with
me and she was going to go next, and like
she was super cute, Like I was chatting her up backstage. Nah,
over done.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Just changes the whole trajectory of your life. You're like, Okay,
I don't know who I am anymore.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Pie boy you got into I mean you started in
macm in the Middle when you were only eight years old,
which is so young in the scheme of things. I mean,
it almost makes me question, like how when you're eight
did you even know that you wanted to be doing acting?
Did you have like a natural gift for it? Was
it something your parents got you in too? What was
it that made you want to be doing acting in
the first place.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
To be honest, it was my sister. My sister did
a summer arts camp. At the end of the summer.
They put on a big show in front of thousands
of people, and I remember going to it and just
thinking it was really cool. So it was more my
sister's thing, and we were jumping on the trampoline. She
was practicing her song that she was going to sing
for the next audition, and she was like, you should audition,

(07:32):
and I was like, all right. So she picked me
a song and we were auditioning for a Christmas Carol
and I ended up getting the part of Tiny Tim
Three days later, three like rehearsals later, agent signed me
and the next thing, I knew like it was my
life and it took over. And from that moment until
I got Malcolm and Malcolm ended, I really never stopped.

(07:53):
So it was a really interesting thing because I don't
remember ever saying I wanted to be an actor. It
wasn't something that my parents push me into. It was
just one of the things of the many things that
I tried as a kid, and it just took over.
And yeah, so I don't have like a super crazy
story other than the fact that I feel like I
got really lucky, because that's what in the end, I

(08:14):
think for child actors it comes down to, especially in
the beginning, when you haven't done any work, you're getting
chosen because you look like you could be the child
of the parents that they already cast, right, And when
you get that opportunity, you hope you do a good
job and people like you, and then it keeps going.
But I just consider myself really lucky. I guess I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
There must be so many people actors in the world
that listen to that and just hate you because they're
like they have spent their whole life like dedicated to
their craft, hustling, going to auditions, getting no, no, no,
and you're like, I didn't even want it.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
Well, it tend to be the most bankable child actor
of whole time.

Speaker 4 (08:51):
I mean, it is one of those things that like,
if you want to be an actor, I feel like
you have to know that there isn't an exact science.
There's not like if you do this, if you go
to these classes, if you focus on this, you're gonna
make it. No one knows how you make it. Like
everybody's story is different of how it happened, And I
think that's the toughest thing about it, unlike other careers, right,

(09:15):
maybe not being a professional athlete or something like that,
But like you, if you want to be a doctor,
you can go to school and you can put in
the time and eventually become a doctor. Right. Doesn't mean
you'll be a good one, but you could become a doctor.
But as an actor, like you need someone else to
give you the opportunity, and it's not up to you.
So people always ask me for advice for their kids.

(09:37):
They come up to me all the time, these parents,
and they go, oh, I've been sending my kids to
all these classes and they're going to this and they're
going to this camp. And I paid this agent thousands
of dollars and we're going to LA for pilot season.
And they go, what advice do you give? And I
really only give two things. I say, first of all,
become the biggest fish wherever you're from, if you live

(09:57):
in whatever city, do the local theater, do the local productions,
get to know everybody there. Have at least something that
people can look at when you do go to LA
or you know, you go somewhere, but then the second
thing is I just remind them that it is literally
winning the ladder. And now I don't mean it to
like bring people's hopes down, but I want to be realistic,

(10:18):
you know what I mean, Like, it's not something that
like you, there's a lot of amazing actors that will
never get the opportunity, say with bands, there's so many
good bands that just don't get seen or don't get heard.
And it's about being at the right place at the
right time. And you know, sometimes it doesn't happen for people,
and sometimes, like me, it happens on accident.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
But what about in terms of being someone who gets
into an industry so young?

Speaker 3 (10:41):
And it's something that you said on I'm a Celebrity.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
You talked about your schooling and how there was rules
around how much school you were able to do, how
much time you were able to spend on set, and
how they would ferry you from macam in the middle
back to get your school work done and then back
and forth talk us through what that was for anyone
who didn't hear that on I'm as Leb. But also
the second part of that is how do you even
maintain any semblance of what would be considered a normal childhood.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
If you're not a child actor, you don't know these things.
But you're only allowed from the ages, let's call it
six to fourteen, six to thirteen, you could only work
nine and a half hours a day. That has to
include three hours of schooling. So essentially the production gets
you for six six and a half hours of filming time,
but they need a film probably twelve hours worth of

(11:26):
content that day with you, And so the schooling counts
in twenty minute increments. So when they say cut and
they go to set the camera up a different angle
or change the lighting or whatever, they run you to school,
to your schoolroom and they take down the time and
as soon as that twenty minutes is up, they pull
you out because it only counts in twenty minute blocks.

(11:49):
So there's times where I would do seventeen minutes and
that seventeen minutes didn't count, and they're like, we don't care,
it's fine, we got a pull and we got a poll.
So it's very hard, I think as a kid when
you are actually trying to do the school work, because
you have to write, you still have to pass the
same test that everyone does. It. Who's going to school
in person, to try to do it in twenty minute increments.

(12:10):
Get your head out of what you were doing on set,
get back into whatever you were reading, whatever test you
were taking, and get it done. Unlike adult actors during
that twenty minutes that we would be in school, they're
hanging out, you're in your dressing room, you're relaxing, you're reading.
You know, you're doing stuff that you want to do.
You don't get to do that as a child actor.
And then as far as feeling normal, I only know

(12:34):
what it's like to be me, right, So I don't
know what I missed necessarily, right, I think things that
I got to do and opportunities that I had in
my life because I was on the show, and I
would assume outweigh what I would have done if I
was just in regular school. So I never let it
bother my sister, for example, she never could take the

(12:57):
rejection of being an actor, so when she continued to
try for a little bit, but she took the no
as like a hit to her self worth, where me,
I didn't care. I just moved on to the next thing.
But what I was getting at with her is school
was everything to her and her friends in that circle,
and going to prom and going to homecoming or whatever

(13:18):
it was, and being a cheerleader on the football for
the football team where I was at the Academy Awards
and then Emmy's In traveling all over the world and
getting to be with my favorite celebrities during time. So
I thought I was living the life. So I never
really took it as a negative of thinking like, oh,
I wish I got to just be normal per se.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
You said just then that your sister took no really
hard and you didn't take it the same way. But
I don't feel like you had that many rejections. I mean,
you got your breakout role at eight years old. I
remember you telling me there was quite a serendipitous story
around how.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
You got that role. You were going for another audition
at the same time. Can you tell us about that.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
Yeah, I mean I definitely still got rejection. I was
going on like before I got Malcolm. Even though I
was always constantly working on stuff, I still was going
on four to six auditions a day, So there's still
a lot of notes. There's way more nose than there
are yeses. But I was lucky that within all the nose,
I would still get stuff here and there to where

(14:19):
like we were constantly working. But that takes me to
the Malcolm story. I was supposed to be filming a
Pizza Hut commercial that morning and my audition for Malcolm.
Let's say it was at ten am, but I had
to be on set for the Pizza Hut commercial, which
at that moment was my big break at the same time,

(14:40):
and I remember telling my mom like, we can't go
to the audition, like forget about, like there's not a chance,
and she was like, no, let's just go. We'll go early.
There's always people there before you. We'll see if you
can get squeezed in and we'll and we'll leave. If not,
we'll just leave and be fine. And I remember being
so angry that my mom was like making us go
to do it, but I'm like whatever. So I end
up going in. There's no one there, the casting directors

(15:03):
not even there. And she ends up coming out of
the elevator she's like, oh, you're here really early, Like
I'm like, I got this pizza commercial, Like I gotta go,
Like can I go in right now? She's like, sure,
come in, And I read the scenes frustrated and angry
and fast, and like I just didn't care, just to
get it over with so I could be done and

(15:23):
go to the pizza commercial. And if you think of Malcolm,
if you watch the show, that's literally him. He's just frustrated.
The world's out to get him, you know what I mean,
Like his parents annoy him, His family annoys in. Little
did I know that that was exactly what they were
looking for. And next thing I knew, I was Malcolm.
So I'm forever grateful that my mom made me go.

(15:46):
But it's funny how how things happen like that.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
Did you do the pizza hot commercial?

Speaker 4 (15:51):
I did. I filmed the pizza commercial, which I've never
seen to the date, you know what I mean. But
I'm sure I was awesome in it.

Speaker 3 (15:58):
I have no doubt. But that's less frustrated though.

Speaker 4 (16:01):
I'm sure I don't even know what I had to
do with the pize commercial. I can't remember. How do
you find that?

Speaker 1 (16:06):
It's a really good question surrounding I mean, you just
said that your mom was taking you to four auditions
a day like that is a huge commitment from your
family to be getting you there. Because you think of
a lot of people like what do I have to
do to make my kid an actor? Well, half of
its dedication from the family. As an adult, now, how
do you look at that time and that pressure on
your mom and what they did for you because you

(16:26):
couldn't have made it without her.

Speaker 4 (16:28):
Well, I don't know if you remember when we were
in the Jungle, when I was on stage getting interviewed
by Tristan for his Little Jungle Shell. That was really
one of the first times I've ever been asked that question,
and I had like a self realization in that moment
the sacrifice that my family made. And I guess for
thirty eight years or thirty years from when I started

(16:50):
acting to now, I just assume that it was normal
like that. Yeah, everyone did it, but we just did
Like my mom, Yah, she quit her job. Yeah, she
took me all over the world when she needed to
and left her life and my sister and everything to
kind of make sure I was where I needed to be.
And even when I got home, I ended up having
a conversation with my wife about it, and my grandparents

(17:14):
ended up raising my sister because of it. So the
sacrifice they made, my cousins, my aunts, my uncle, we
start to think about I going, Wow, everybody sacrificed everything
to make my dream and my life happen. And it
was a really weird realization to have in the jungle,
and I was kind of mad at myself that I
hadn't realized it sooner. Having a child now, Like, you know,

(17:37):
my son, he's three, I want to be there and
do everything I can for him in his life. That's
one thing I also realized in the jungle is like, wow,
I'm fortunate enough to where I can kind of dedicate
my time in my life to what he wants. I mean,
he's young right now, he hasn't decided. But even being back,
I find myself like, you get busy with life, you

(17:57):
get busy with the things you need to do, Like, oh,
I need to do this. He was just in here
and he was like sweeping and yelling and singing, and
I was like, but but you gotta get out of here.
I gotta do this thing. And I'm like, wait, not
saying that like I'm kicking him out, but like I'm
always still putting myself first. And it's a reminder that
what my family did for me was huge. I want

(18:17):
to do that for my son and my family as well,
But it's not something that a lot of people can do,
and that is true for child actors. It really does
take the family making massive sacrifices, you know, and a
lot of them aren't positive sacrifices. That's something else. Another
realization I had in the jungle. Can just asked me
what good came from it for my family? And I honestly,

(18:40):
like it might sound awful, like I actually don't think
any good came for my family. I think there was
good for me. There was massive sacrifice on behalf of
my family, for my sister. My parents end up getting divorced.
We really kind of been separate since I've left to
become an actor at eleven, twelve years old. My mom's
had maybe shouldn't want me to talk about this, but
she's had, you know, financial issues because she was my manager,

(19:03):
so she made a lot of money from me, didn't
know how to manage it, and it put her in
a really bad position. So even though there was positive,
it became negative kind of for everybody is where does.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
That sounds, Frankie, what's your relationship like with your sister?

Speaker 4 (19:17):
We're not close, but we're not close, if that makes sense,
Like we won't talk to each other for four months,
five months, but then I'll go and see her and
it's as if we spent every day together since we
were kids. So it's interesting dynamic. I actually went to
visit her since I've been home and stayed at her
house with my nieces, her daughters, and I had a

(19:39):
moment with her where I actually cried and I was like,
you know, thank you for the sacrifice she made. She's like,
you're being creepy, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
She's like, got back to the jungle.

Speaker 4 (19:48):
Yeah, I wish we were closer. I do. I honestly
feel like I don't know a lot about my sister
because we just don't spend a lot of time together.
She has her life and she lives far away from
me and I have mine. But like I said, when
we're together, like it's not like an awkward there's no
awkward dynamic.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
I guess also when you say you live far away
from each other now as adults, when your childhood is
so comprised of working and being separate to where your
family unit is, it doesn't really forge the way to
have the same sibling bonds that you would have if
you grow up in the same household and you're exposed
to all the same things, like you're living such independent
lives of each other. But I find that so interesting because,

(20:26):
I mean, when you speak about this inherent sacrifice that
your family's made, and when parents make those sacrifices willingly,
your other siblings don't get to make it willingly. Those
sacrifices are kind of put on them. And so yeah,
my question comes from like how that impacted her, and
it's interesting to hear what it's like and the fact
that you guys still can be close regardless of that.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
Now.

Speaker 4 (20:45):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think that she has any
negative like she doesn't resent meah or kind of the
decisions that were made. But it was interesting to talk
to her post this reallyation when my grandmother died in
October and it really affected my sister, I mean affected

(21:06):
all of us, but really affected my sister. And when
I talked to her about it, she's like Grandma raised
me essentially, you know what I mean. And it was
like even having that conversations where we're like, wait, you're right,
like that's such a weird thought, like to lose and
my mom like, it's not like my mom just like
abandoned her. We tried to get my sister to come

(21:26):
with us whenever we left, but I originally I'm going
to back up a little bit and tell one of
my long witted stories because I'm so good at them.
I'm born in New Jersey, New York area. We moved
to North Carolina because my dad's job took us down there.
When I started acting in North Carolina, I was doing
so much that my agent there was like, you do
either need to go to New York or LA to
continue your journey as an actor. So we decided to

(21:50):
go to New York because that's where we were originally from.
My grandparents were there, my other family. We went there,
but my sister stayed back with my dad in North Carolina.
She didn't want to leave her school. Well, she didn't
want to do it. We finally convinced her after maybe
a year of being separate, moved to New Jersey. Like,
come up, grandma, everyone's there, and we like she stayed

(22:10):
for the summer. She's like, yeah, she made some friends.
She came there and moved in and I think it
was like two weeks later. I got Malcolm and we.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Moved to La you little do bag you lift up
must have been so hard.

Speaker 4 (22:22):
And she's like I'm not She's like I'm staying here,
you know, like I barely wanted to come here. She's thirteen,
fourteen years old, whatever it was. You know, she was
into her friend group, like super close. I'll tell this
about my sister, Like she got accepted to Harvard and
Yale and these amazing, you know, universities, and she didn't
go because she wanted to stay local. She went to

(22:42):
like a local college by her friends, you know what
I mean. She didn't like change or going out on
a land and seeing how it worked out where Like me,
like that's been my whole life, Like I love jumping
around and seeing what's going to come from it.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
But you mentioned this before about your finances in your mind,
and I think that's a question that everyone wants to know.
Is when you're a child actor, you're eight years old,
nine years old, and you start making bank, who looks
after that? How does that work? Does an accountant get
does your mom get it? Do you get a little
salary every week? Because you don't know what the hell
you're doing with only at eight years old.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
It would also be very different in the state, so
I guess to what it is an Australia as well,
like different rules different countries.

Speaker 4 (23:21):
Yeah, so in the States, or at least with the
Screen Actors Guild, you as a child actor, I think
eighty percent of the money goes to a trust. It
goes into a trust that cannot be touched by anyone
until you're eighteen. And that's because so many child actors
work their whole lives. The parents get the money and

(23:42):
they turn eighteen that they've spent, it's all gone, there's
none left, so the money goes to a trust. The
issue is, for most people, most actors, most come from nothing, right.
My mom didn't have money. My family didn't have any money,
so she didn't know how to manage it. And you know,
you're not talking like where it slowly builds like it

(24:02):
went from kind of like, oh I got some little checks.
Oh yeah, I remember I drew like a little you know,
like a fundraiser thing where you put like the dollar
amounts and like you try to fill it up. And
at the top of it, I had this dirt bike
and I was like, I'm gonna save all this money,
I'm gonna buy this dirt bike when I can, And
but it goes from like that where you're getting like
little checks to like, all of a sudden, there's a

(24:23):
lot of money coming in. So my mom didn't know
how to manage it. Nobody knew how to manage it.
And everyone gives you advice, whether it's good or bad.
Everybody says, oh, you need to hire this person, you
need this, you need a lawyer, you need a business manager,
you need this, you need a publicist, And all of
a sudden you realize you've got like ten people working
for you, but really just taking your money, you know

(24:43):
what I mean. So my mom hired a business manager
when I was first starting out in Malcolm. I'll say this,
he was the only person that I truly trusted in
that business, truly trusted. And I will just say this
and I won't get too far into it. Last person
I should have trusted, like took insane amounts of my money,

(25:04):
stole it gone. And you hear that story happens a lot.
It happens to so many people, and no matter how
much you're warned of it, it still happens to more
people than it doesn't give.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
The entertainment business, that's something that we talked about Frankie
in the jungle and I found it interesting And just
to expand on it a little bit, you said that
because you were so young when you came into money
and he trusted him, he looked after your finances for
a very long time, like twenty ten, fifteen, twenty years, and.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
You never looked ten years.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yeah, you never were looking at your account or your
finances because you didn't need to. You hired a professional
to do it, and it wasn't until you were an
adult that you found out he'd been stealing from you, right.

Speaker 4 (25:46):
Yeah, So that's you know, if you think about it.
Even if I was shown the stuff, right, you get
a profit and loss and a balance sheet said to
you when you're thirteen years old, You're like, I don't
know what it means, you know what I mean, I've
no idea. So sure they were sharing stuff, I know.
I remember being so surprised when you would look at

(26:06):
the profit and loss that, like, as I was getting
older and they would send it. I was actually my
ex worked in finance, so she eventually was like, do
you ever look at that? Do you ever look at
your what you're spending money on or what came in
and what went out. I was like no. She like,
do you mind if I look at it? And I
was like sure. So she looked at it and she goes,

(26:26):
I've been with you for two years. I know what
money you've spent this year, this month, whatever. But she goes,
it's saying that you're spending two hundred thousand dollars a
month on research or whatever it might be, right, Like, what, No,
there's no way, Like, I'm the most frugal person alive, Like,
I don't spend money on anything. So she made me

(26:48):
question him and questioned what some of the expenses were,
what some of the things were, and uh, yeah, I
definitely wish I was. I questioned it a lot sooner.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
We hear about so many stories around how child stars
are let down by the system, how it's not designed
to protect children necessarily. And I mean, there's been so
many who have either gone through a phase after being
child stars where it's a rebellion phase, or whether that
phase actually isn't a phase at all, it's truly damaged
their lives and damaged their ability to live normal lives

(27:19):
as adults. Did you see any of those first hands hand?
In terms of like the actors that you worked alongside.
And I guess even more so, why is it that
you're an exception? Like you've grown up pretty okay by
the scenes of things, you know, when you take into
account that you've had such an extraordinary upbringing.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
You mean, like like you have the Amanda Bynes child actors.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Ncouli Culkin, Like, I'm talking about all of the big
child actors from our time, majority of them when it
moved into adulthood and seemed as though they were having
a lot of problems that happened on a very public scale.

Speaker 4 (27:51):
I've thought of it. I've tried to think about it, because, yeah,
when I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, all my friends pretty
much wear in the entertainment business, a lot of big
celebrity kids, and I watch them all kind of go
down or off the deep end. But in that at
that same token or whatever the word is, how many

(28:13):
kids do you know that you went to school with
that went down a bad path? A decent amount probably
right at least even for a little bit, right, I
think part of it is just being a kid transitioning,
going through that awkward stage of your life. Anyway, But
when you have the cameras on you, when you have
eyeballs on you, when people catch you doing something bad

(28:34):
or whatever it is, it is publicized, right, It's a
big story. Where if you know someone who's just going
to school does something, maybe people find out in the school,
but it doesn't become news necessarily. I think there's a
little bit of that. I think there is the element
that when you're in the entertainment business, it's an adult business.
Yes there's kids in it, but the adults don't do

(28:55):
things differently when there's kids there per se, right, So
like you see things that you wouldn't necessarily be surrounded
by if you weren't in that business. The other element is,
and I think the biggest element of why when most
child actors become adults, why you see such a drastic
fallof is if you had success as a kid so

(29:18):
early on, even like me, like I didn't necessarily ask
for it, I was grateful for it, but it just happened.
And when that starts to go away, I think that
really affects people, you know, because when you are doing
anything and you have success in it, I think you
think that it's gonna be there forever you're gonna have
it forever, whether you're going back to like athletes, even

(29:41):
I hear these stories of basketball players, football players, soccer players,
whatever it is. They get a contract and they spend
all their money, they go crazy. They do this because
you just think that it's gonna keep going forever, but
it doesn't. So I think it almost is like you
then are searching for something to fill that void, and
usually it's not thing that's great. That may make sense.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
It's such a good point though, because I think the
thing that's different when you compare this maybe even from
like an athlete situation or a person who becomes really
successful in their adult life, they understand and know what
it was like to be the opposite, whereas a child
stars live such little amount of their life so far
that they've only been famous that's what they're exposed to.
So then I guess like having this almost fall from grace,

(30:26):
And what I mean by that isn't in terms of
like what you're doing, but as in you've been love
love love by the public. There's been all this adoration,
and then that slowly starts to fade away. You're left
with this big question mark of like, well, who am
I yeah, who am I when when the world doesn't
love me? Who am I when you know there aren't
people lining up to call my name and I'm I'm
a normal person. I guess that would leave a really

(30:47):
big hole and a really big loss of identity for
some child stars.

Speaker 4 (30:50):
I think you know a lot of child actors, it
becomes their identity, like it's the only thing that they
think that they are. So I could see how that
would affect you tremendously. I think I never was in
that world. I always felt like an outsider when I
was in Hollywood, even though, like you know, I was
on a rowing show and I was going to all

(31:12):
the same things that the other celebrities were, But like
I always felt like kind of like I didn't fully belong.
I just felt like I'm just me and like I
can't believe I'm here. This is weird. But I also
made the choice right when Malcolm ended to leave the
business to go race cars, right, so I didn't go
through necessarily that period of like trying to continue to

(31:35):
be an actor and thinking that like everything was just
going to keep going and it slowed down. I left
on purpose, and people thought I was crazy. You know,
my agent said, everybody was calling, go, oh, you got
offer this. I'm like, no, no, Like I'm being serious when
I say, like, I'm just going to focus on racing.
So I was away from the entertainment business enough by
time I realized, oh wow, like that kind of went away,

(31:58):
you know. But at that point I was in my
head just living my normal life of whatever it was,
so that never affected me at all. I remember there
being an awkward time, but like, I feel really lucky
that when I was on Malcolm, or like when I
was in the height of my career, there wasn't social media, right,

(32:20):
I'm like that last generation of shows pre social media,
because what my space was around kind of two thousand
and five, two thousand and six, Facebook barely. I think
Twitter started in two thousand and eight. Malcolm ran from
ninety nine to to two thousand and six. So I
feel like I got to focus on just being an
actor and being on show, and you almost were unattainable

(32:42):
to people. So it was a different level of where
it's not fame, but you know, people kind of respected
you in a different way as an actor, where now
like everybody knows everything about every single thing you do
and your your personality, like people only saw me as
a character, maybe like a five minute like there wasn't
long form podcasts like this where you really get to

(33:03):
dig down and get deep with someone. You know, I
was on cheat Lenno and your answer really quick to
get a laugh, and then they bring the next guest out.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Yeah, you were left with people just thinking that you
couldn't flip a pie.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
Like people just didn't know.

Speaker 4 (33:16):
The really exactly. Yes, I don't even think they knew
that I tore my acl.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
A weed ankle.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
But when you and I guess this is the difference
between maybe yourself and other actors that can't escape the
acting industry. When you walked away from Malcolm in the
middle and you just said, I've had enough, I'm going
to go start race car driving because you drive for NASCAR. Now,
had you made enough money from Malcolm as a child
actor that you didn't have to go and source other work,

(33:44):
because I think that that is probably one of the
biggest misconceptions from us plubs on the outside. When we
look at Hollywood, we think everyone is loaded. We think
every actor is going on and making millions of dollars,
But they're not like they're spreaking haircare on social media.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
Now they're pigning for the next job.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
It's so funny when you see someone doing an ad
that you think like, why the fuck are they doing
that ad? Like, oh my god, that's like, you know,
this person's doing a coffee out or whatever. And then
you're like, oh, that's why because they probably didn't make
enough money.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
Yeah, would you say that that? Is that rings true?

Speaker 4 (34:14):
Oh? I mean so I was very fortunate, definitely did well.
I'll say that even with the business manager situation, still
was left in a really, really good position. Now, I
don't know, this is an interesting fact that I don't
know if you know this. So the Screen Actors Guild, right, however,
many members there are in SAG. And to get into SAG,

(34:37):
you have to do a certain number of roles. You
have to have speaking roles, you know, blah blah blah,
you have to pay your dues. There's a statistic that
ninety eight percent or ninety eight point something percent of
all members of SAG make less than three thousand dollars
a year as an actor actress. I'd say three thousand dollars,

(35:00):
like one percent of those people who make more than
three thousand dollars, make enough to qualify for the health
benefits from SAG, which is making twenty six thousand dollars
a year, you know what I mean. So I think
people think like, oh, there's so many actors, and there's
so many working actors, and they make so much money.
So unless you have like you're on a show or
you've had a lot of success most actors, if you

(35:24):
get on a TV show as a guest star, well
you're getting scale. You're getting seven hundred and fifty bucks,
one thousand bucks. That's it, thank you, thanks for coming
this week. You know what I mean. You might get
some little residuals, but it's not like you're rolling in
crazy amounts of money. I think one thing that people
forget is when you start off as an actor, you

(35:46):
work for free. Right, you do anything you can. You're
doing theater, you're going you know, you're doing everything you
can for free. So when you get paid even anything,
you're like, WHOA, I just made seven hundred and fifty bucks,
Like this is awesome. I got to what I love.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
We had Rebel Wilson on and I remember her saying
that her first role her breakout role, which I believe
was Bridesmaid. She earned three thousand dollars from that film
and it cost her about three thousand dollars just to
be a part of SAG and to sign up to
everything that she needed to do.

Speaker 3 (36:17):
So she ended up not.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
Making any money and went from the outside. When you
look at a movie that big, that had such a
social total impact, like it was a social phenomenon, she
didn't make any money. And I think that that is
something that people just don't realize. And that's why we're
seeing now with social media. We're seeing like the Drew
Barrymore is putting hair care products on like because people
are not making the money.

Speaker 4 (36:39):
Well, here's an interesting thing. This is kind of off subject,
but it's not. When I was on Malcolm, reality TV
was just barely starting, like any kind of reality TV
little game show, celebrity things. There was like the Real
World and I don't know what they had in Australia,
but like they had a few shows, and if you
got asked to do one as a actor who was

(37:00):
on a scripted TV show, that was like the worst
thing you could do for your career. It was like
a death sentence. It didn't matter how much money they offered.
You didn't do it, you did not touch it. Right
Where now in twenty twenty four, really the last I say,
seven eight years, everybody's on reality TV, like Kevin Hart,

(37:21):
the Rock Right, people who are making twenty million dollars
per movie, and they're constantly filming all the time. They
do shows here and there, they host these specials, they're
hosting game shows or doing that. Because it's not necessarily
about your work anymore. It's about your brand, right, It's
about you as an entity or a celebrity or whatever.

(37:43):
It's not about like being respected just specifically as an
actor or not. So I find that interesting. And then
the same thing goes with like the ads, Instagram, the
social media advertising and stuff like that. That's something for me,
like as someone who isn't very active on social media,
but as a race car driver, I have to sell myself, right,

(38:03):
Like I'm constantly putting out stuff for products that I'm
representing and that I'm racing. And it's become such a
big part of what people look for. I mean, as
an actor, if you're going up for something, they look
at your social media. I think first, I think it's
the first thing the casting and the producers and stuff.
Look at is they say, like how big of an
audience do they have to send out the word about

(38:27):
this project? And so it's crazy, so like so building
that is important, you know, And then you think this
is me personally. I started hitting the cards like I
don't want to do Instagram ads. I don't want to
do any of that, Like you know, I don't do
enough on it anyway. But then you look at it,
you go, people might give you backlash for it. No
one really does anymore, but because I think everyone does it,

(38:47):
but you go, I'm literally supplying how I put food
on the table, but you go like that's how I
made money? Like how how can anyone look at that
from a negative aspect? I don't know, maybe that make
any sense?

Speaker 2 (39:01):
No, you are no, totally and definitely the world has changed,
I mean from the way in which a reality TV
was once upon a time viewed to now. But also
that's where the viewership is. I know, for Australian TV,
more people are watching reality TV here than what we
are watching scripto drama. So it really is an interesting
shift and how actors have had to evolve with it

(39:21):
as well. Going back to like the conversation we had
a little bit earlier around child stars and around how
things can sometimes go off the rails. One thing for
you which I didn't realize this and mentioned it, you
don't drink and you don't do drugs and you never have,
which I think is also pretty part and parcels to
why you've probably never ever taken a step off the
you know, the straight and narrow. But what was it

(39:43):
for you when you're in an industry, when you say
that adults don't curve their adult behavior around you, what
made you not want to even try?

Speaker 4 (39:53):
I don't really have a good reason or explanation. I
do remember being eighteen years old, and somehow I grew
up thinking that the only people who smoked pot were
people who you'd see on episodes of cops getting chased
by the police.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
Your mom did a good job of instilling that great
But to you know.

Speaker 4 (40:17):
Ten years later, I was talking to my mom and
my dad about it, and my Dad's like, I smoked
pot every single day from the day you were born.
You like, like, what, So it was weird to be
like eighteen and in the business and starting to realize like,
oh wait, most people do oh, what's that white powder?
Oh that's not baby powder? Cokay, got it? Okay, But

(40:39):
I kind of I was around it and I understood,
like I started to understand what it was. But when
people started offering it to me, I remember always just
going like no, I don't drink, I don't smoke, I
don't I don't do that. And people's reaction. I remember
everyone being so over the top crazy to be like
oh really, oh wow, that is so in firing and

(41:01):
oh keep that up, like I'm so proud of you.
Like people had such a huge reaction either way, either
like what do you mean you don't or wow you don't?
Amazing that it felt. It was just such an odd thing,
like why do people care so much about what I
do or don't do? Right? But it almost stuck with
me of like I kind of liked just saying I.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
Did it made you feel empowered.

Speaker 4 (41:23):
Yeah, it was so crazy because everyone else were like yeah, sure,
Like they went with the flow and they did it
to where I think that's how it started. And now
it's thirty eight years old, I'm kind of like, well,
I probably shouldn't start now, but I don't know. I'm
pretty stressed. So maybe a drink would be kidd, I'm
just gonna cut straight to straight to heroin or something, Frankie.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
I'd love to know growing up in Hollywood as a
child star in a situation where you have to rely
so heavily and trust adults to get you through life,
and then to find out that the person you trusted
the most had stolen tens of millions of dollars from you?
How does that affect your relationships as an adult? Does
that affect the way you trust?

Speaker 4 (42:06):
You?

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Know?

Speaker 4 (42:07):
It's funny because I still trust people because I'm always
told by my wife who She's like, you have the
worst radar, you know what I mean. She's like the
people who you shouldn't trust you somehow trust Like, what
are you talking about? She's like this person, this person,
this person. Cut to three months later, six months later,
I'm like, I should have listened to you. So it's
not that I don't trust anybody. I just very rarely

(42:30):
allow people in even at all enough to have to
trust them. I've kind of taken over where like I
just try to handle everything myself. When it comes to business,
I do contracts myself. I take care of my finances, myself.
I do everything too, even to where people are like,
you do your own taxes, you do this, you do that.
I'm like, yeah, like it's the only way to know

(42:51):
it's being done correctly and right. And if I make
a mistake, I can only do that at myself. I
don't I can't blame someone else. And I've realized I
like that, but I don't know how much that is
because I don't trust people. It's been a reminder since
being home from the jungle. Like in the jungle, I
realize how much I need people in my life and friendships,

(43:11):
and I want that, but like coming home and realizing,
like I really don't have many people to call at all.
Why is that. I'm still trying to figure that out.
I'm trying to figure out what it is exactly of
why I don't allow. It's not that I don't allow
people in. I just don't even all right, I'll tell
another story. Sorry. I started going to church just recently

(43:32):
for the first time in my life, maybe in the
last year, and I have people come up to me.
Even today I went to church. They came up to
me and they go, hey, like, you know, we see
here all the time, Like we're the same age, our
kids are the same age. Like, I'd love to get
coffee with you. Let's let's go out to get coffee.
And I've made myself since i've been home say yes,
let's do it. But at the same time, usually in

(43:53):
my life, when I meet someone, even if I think,
like man, I would get along with that person so
well that initial time going to hang out, I just
never even do that, So I don't know what that is.
I blame. Usually I have an excuse. I'm very busy.
I want to get my house done, I've got to

(44:14):
go here, I'm traveling. When I have time to where
I could be a friend, I'm happy to turn on
the TV for the first time, or I'm happy to
just venge because I never really get to do that.
So where some people need other people to feel fun
or calm or that's how they relax, I'm the opposite.

(44:36):
I kind of feel like the best thing I can
do for myself is to do nothing, because it's so
rare that I do that. So I don't know. It's
a balance I'm trying to figure out, especially after being
in the jungle and having such a positive experience from
the people I was with because that's what I truly
think that the why the experience was positive was because
we had such a great group. We all got along

(44:58):
and I learned so much about myself because of the
people who were in the jungle. If you took anybody
away and change them, it could have been a completely
different experience. So it was interesting. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
Well, I think as adults too, you have to prioritize
friendship and that's just not you because you've been burnt
and you might not trust people. But you're busy and
you're stressed and you're tired, and it's really hard sometimes
when you just want to sit down and do nothing
and like eat a doughnut in the lounge. It's really
hard to be like, I should go in socialized for
my kid, for you know, or for my own healths.
You have to make a conscious effort, and a lot

(45:31):
of us.

Speaker 3 (45:31):
Don't do that.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
Let's talk about how you have completely shifted your entire
life now and you're a NASCAR driver. How did that
happen because a lot of people probably wouldn't take you seriously.
I imagine when you say, hey, I'm not going to
be a child actor anymore. I've grown up and now
I want to race cars.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
Yeah. Well, I got to do a celebrity race, a
pro celebrity race that they did in Long Beach, California
for forty years. It was a big event and they
would take you off and train you for months before
the race, and they teach you as much as they
could teach someone before a race of a bunch of
actors and celebrities mixed with pros. And I ended up

(46:11):
winning that and that feeling of crossing the finish line first,
I can't explain to you how amazing that felt. So
in that moment, I was like, Man, I've got to
do this more. I've got to do this again. But
how do you become a race car driver. I didn't
grow up in it. Most people start racing when they're
four or five, six years old. I didn't know that.
I was eighteen nineteen at the time, so I was

(46:34):
already old as far as getting into racing. But when
I won that race, there was a pro team there
and the owner approached me. He's like, Hey, if you
ever want to come out, I'll put you in a
race car. You can have fun, we'll just be cool.
So he invited me to Houston, and remember flying in
and I had to get my seat molded to my body,

(46:55):
so they get me in the seat and you're like
basically laying down in this car, and I remember being
I'm so petrified of what I was about to do,
Like I can't explain it. But I ended up going
out and by the end of the day I was
faster than their pro driver, and right there in that moment,
the team owner was like, I want to sign you.
We're going to do a two year development deal. And

(47:17):
the next month I was racing professionally for BMW racing
against Daniel Ricardo and Sebastian Vette, who are you know,
Formula One drivers and and you know IndyCar champions And
I really was thrown off the deep end. But because
I left the business when that happened, I told my agents,
I said, I'm going to focus on this because to them,

(47:40):
to my competitors, it's their lives, like they're not acting
over here and then going in racing cars like they're
doing it one hundre percent full time. So I really
kind of threw myself off the deep end. Raced professionally
for four years, this is two thousand and six to
two thousand and nine season, and in two thousand and
nine I ended up getting really really badly hurt. I'll
show this, this is what I raced that to me

(48:01):
back in the day. I don't know why this is sitting.

Speaker 3 (48:03):
On my desk, but that is a cool car. It's
very impressive.

Speaker 4 (48:06):
Yeah, So I raced those back back in the day
and I ended up during that season got in a
really bad accident. I broke my back, pins in my hand,
broken ribs, and ended up missing the last three races
of the season. So at that point in my life,
like I said, I'm going to be a race car
driver for the rest of my life. Like that's it.
That's what I'm doing, that's what I'm meant to do,

(48:27):
It's what I was made for. It took me so
long to heal that. I missed the beginning of the
next season, and like most athletes, if you miss the
season and you're not signed a contract, you're probably not
getting signed, right, So I thought I was going to
get back into it. I ended up joining a band
I know, it sounds weird, and touring around doing that

(48:47):
for years, and it wasn't until my son was born.
So that was two thousand and nine. My son was
born in twenty twenty one. I hadn't raised anything in
those twelve years, and I was holding him in the
hospital bed and thinking like, wow, who is my son
going to grow up? Thinking that his dat is right.
I didn't want to be like, hey, I used to

(49:10):
be an actor, or I used to race cars. I
used to do this. I wanted him to grow up
seeing me like reaching for a goal and working really
hard for something. And the one thing that I really
felt like I had unfinished business in was the racing world,
because it got him cut short. By that point, you know,
I was thirty six years old, which is ancient in

(49:31):
racing in the racing world, and I was like, whatever,
I'm gonna do it, but I'm going NASCAR racing, which
from what I used to do, the Oapen Whale stuff
like Formula one or IndyCar compared to NASCAR. That's like
saying Olympic diving and Olympic swimming are the same thing
because they both involved water in a pool where they're
completely different athletes, completely different styles. So once again I

(49:54):
threw myself off the deep end going into NASCAR, and
my first pro race was at date, never raced on
an oval before that, and I ended up leading the
championship for most of the season, had really bad luck
at the end of last season, and ended up finishing
fourth in the championship. So find it just happened.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
I just think, from like my perspective, if my husband
was to turn around and say, oh, that thing that
almost killed me, now that we've got a baby, I'm
going to go back and do that because I've got
unfinished business with it. My fear, my anxiety, my wanting
to know why, like where did this second lease on,
wanting to you know, have a death wish almost come from,
which I'm sure that's not how you see it, but

(50:33):
it does seem like it's an interesting time in life
to decide to do something that for a lot of
people would be quite risky.

Speaker 4 (50:40):
I think there's two elements to it. One I'll be honest,
maybe it's a mid life crisis.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
Definitely is.

Speaker 4 (50:50):
Just being honest. But truly, like, the one thing I
really love about racing compared to anything else I could
do is it's not subject unlike being an actor, where
you can work really hard getting into a character in
a role and do what you think is your best
work ever, and I come on this podcast, so your

(51:11):
guys are like, it wasn't that good. We didn't like it.
It's subjective, right. As a race car driver, you're either
fast or you're not. It's in black and white depending
on where you finish. And I love that aspect of
it that someone couldn't tell me I didn't belong in
that world, because if you think as an actor, I
went through the same thing when I was in the band.

(51:31):
I played drums in a band. I was the drummer.
If you didn't look hard enough, you didn't see me.
But people automatically have like a preconceived image in their
head that an actor in a band of what it's
going to be. And people think that you can't have
success in multiple areadas, in multiple things. They only accept

(51:53):
you in one place. So maybe that was part of it.
Maybe it was the fact that I went no, I
want to go raise again, because it's not subjective right.
People can say I don't belong, and people can think
that I don't belong, but I'm gonna prove them wrong.
And I like that aspect of it. I wanted to
prove people, not that I wanted prove people wrong. I
wanted my son to see me working as hard as

(52:15):
I am, training and doing everything and getting into the
race and race mode and seeing the ups and downs
of it, because there really is like the highs of
being a race car driver. There's nothing like it, but
the lows are low. And even this year, my first
two races of the season, like before I went into
the jungle, were the worst races I ever had in

(52:36):
my entire career. And I remember being in the jungle
thinking like what am I doing? Like I am risking
my life to go fulfill this dream or whatever it is,
but like it's not even fun, you know what I mean.
It's like just like that.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
Sucked, and you're away from your family.

Speaker 4 (52:55):
You're away from the family a lot. I'm you know,
I'm old. My body hurts, Like what am I doing?
And when I left the jungle, I had a race.
I erased the Talladega and I ended up finishing ninth,
but I ran in third place. The entire race, just
battle hitting each other, hitting people, and it made me
go like this is what I'm supposed to do. Like

(53:17):
that feeling of being competitive and getting in the car
and doing it and having success like there's nothing better
than that. So to answer your question, the yes, I
understand the danger aspect of it. I have been hurt.
I don't want to put my wife and my son
in a bad position. I think a bad position wouldn't

(53:37):
be me dying. It would be me not dying and
being in a bad position of like my wife having
to take care of me. I wouldn't want to do that.
I'm not afraid of dying, but I am afraid of
getting hurt. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (53:50):
Yeah, it does when you think about and you reflect
on and I think all parents do this to some degree.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
But when you reflect on.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Your life, the childhood that you had, who you are
as a person, What impact has that had on the
type of dad that you want to be when you
think about the way in which you want to raise
your son.

Speaker 4 (54:08):
I had a great relationship with my parents. I remember
when my mom told me they were getting divorced that
I was happy for her because they did argue a lot,
like they fought a lot. Just remember going to bed
and you'd always hear them yelling in the living room.
So I remember like thinking that it was good for her.
As weird as that sounds, but as far as me, like,

(54:29):
my dad might hate me for saying this if he
hears this, because I don't know what Maybe it's you
writteny you pull this stuff out of me because I
don't ever talk about any of this stuff, but I'm
gonna I want to say it anyway. My dad and
I now have a weird relationship, and a lot of
it I think stems from the fact that, like, he
hasn't tried to involve himself in my life, but he

(54:52):
hasn't tried to involve myself in my son's life. Like
it's weird to me that he doesn't want to be
involved at all. But he'll tell me and say, you
didn't text your step mom. I'm like, I don't even
know her. It was her birthday, you know what I mean. Like,
but you can text your grant, your only grandson, you know.
So we have a weird relationship right now that I'm
trying to figure out. But I have thought about it,

(55:13):
and I asked my mom this the other day, and
I go, I remember laughing with my dad, I remember
like him helping me with sports, but I don't remember
him being like the dad I am to my son
as far as like, don't get me wrong. I know
my dad loved me. I love my son like I
will do anything and everything for him, and I want

(55:36):
to hold him forever. Granted, I'm still a tough dad,
like I'm still like you know, like I'm not lenient
in that sense, but I look at how I am
with Maws my son, and I think I'm doing a
good job. But I want to be so much better.
I think right now, there's no way that there's ever
going to be a time in my son's life that

(55:57):
he doesn't want to call me and tell me what
he did that day. You know what I mean? Where
my relationship with my dad right now? Like I think
I talked to him the day before I went into
the jungle because I hadn't talked to him in months
and I just figured I should. But I haven't talked
to him since I've been out, and I feel like
that's a weird thought. As a dad, I go, I

(56:19):
can't imagine what not knowing what my son was up
to or where he was or what he was doing.
I don't know, that was maybe pretty personal, but as
far as like being in the entertainment business, like I
probably wouldn't allow mass to be a child actor. If
he really wanted to, I wouldn't say no. But it's
not something that I would be like, Hey, let's go
send him on audition, let's put him in this play.

(56:41):
I want him to kind of do whatever he wants,
like what he wants. I think that's the one, not
the one. But a positive thing about my childhood was
my parents had me doing everything because I wanted to.
I wanted to play this, I wanted to go here,
I want to do that, and they gave me the
opportunity to do it and grateful for that. I do

(57:01):
want to put my family first before my needs. And
it's hard. It's hard when since I was eight years old,
I've always done what I had to do.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
It's hard, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Work wise acting when you've always had people doing things
for you as well, like you've always been at the
center of what's happening, it's almost then hard to remove
yourself and be like, Okay, well when do I make
compromises because you've never had to make the compromises.

Speaker 4 (57:27):
I've never had to make compromises. Everyone has compromised for me,
and I now know there like it. But it took
conversation just recently in the jungle, I'll be going like WHOA.
So same thing with my wife, you know, she's constantly
making compromises for things that like I'm doing because I'll
be like, hey, I just got asked to do this
race next week. Okay, now I'm leaving. So instead of

(57:48):
going from La to back to Phoenix with you, I'm
flying to Charlotte and I'm gonna be gone for six
days and bu blah, Like I don't even it's a
weird thought that like it's just like, oh, yep, that's
just the way it is. And I go, wait, I
want to make sure we're all on the same page
and that it doesn't put her in a bad position.
So I'm trying to be better at that. And I
think that has to go with even me being a dad.

(58:10):
I'm a yes man in the sense that like I
like to do things, I like to stay busy because
I always have. I also know like when you have opportunity,
it's good to take advantage of that opportunity. It's good
to do it because it's not always going to be there.
But there becomes a limit of in a great position financially,
I've got a great family, I've got a great house,
I've got all this stuff that I go like, why

(58:30):
am I continuing to work so hard, like so crazy
to where we don't have time to do things as
a family. And so that's something I realized in the
jungle that I don't want to continue to do. So
I'm trying to figure out what that means for the
rest of this year. So I can, you know, not
get out of the things that I have planned, you know,
because I've got to do the things I've already said

(58:51):
yes to, but for the future. Put keeping that in
mind of like what is it called the work life balance,
you know.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
Frankie, In terms of love of I mean, you have
found the love of your life page your wife now.
But you were and many people probably don't know this,
but you've been engaged three times. And you were engaged
very young and very quickly, Like after a few weeks.
Reflecting back on that, now, do you feel like you
were just a romantic or do you feel like it

(59:19):
was an emotional attachment and you just wanted to feel
safety and love and security and that's why you would
jump into these relationships so quickly.

Speaker 4 (59:27):
So yeah, my first I guess serious relationship. I got
engaged after nineteen days.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
It's so it's amazing. It's amazing, Laura trying to cover because.

Speaker 4 (59:45):
Oh, well no, because here I am not married to her,
never got married to her. So I was nineteen years old.
I was filming a movie in New Orleans and I
met this girl and you know how to connection. But
I went back to LA. She stayed in New Orleans,
and I remember having her come to visit me like

(01:00:06):
a week later. I guess it was only in nineteen days.
So yeah, it had open pretty quick, and I wanted
her to leave LA and go back home, feeling secure
with my intentions and the way I felt about the relationship.
So it's so extreme, so I proposed, yeah, probably not
the right thing to do.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Most people would leave with like a girlfriend or boyfriend label,
like they would be like were committed, and you were like,
fuck that, I don't do things by half.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
Frankie, will marry you?

Speaker 4 (01:00:36):
Yeah? Yes, yes. So we ended up being together for
I think about two years. Just realized we were just
good friends, Like we had an amazing friendship, but we're
just friends and kind of win our separate ways.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
I feel like most people in Hollywood whind they're coming
to proper money, and then nineteen twenty and they're pulling
chicks left, front and center. Their decision is not usually
lock the first one down. They're just like from what
we hear from the outside, it's just like, you know,
it's the opportunity of choice.

Speaker 4 (01:01:06):
Yeah, well, you know, maybe I just done that so
much that was already over it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
So could you get anyth you wanted?

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Frankie, Like when you came and I mean like we
had these combos, but when you Laura's laughing at it,
I was like, did I I don't have these comos?

Speaker 4 (01:01:19):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
Sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
In the jungle, FRANKI and I chatted about like the
idea of when you become uber famous in Hollywood and
you are young, like you're young, attractive, and you had money,
did you feel like you went through a phase where
you could just go and pretty much hook up with
who you wanted? Like, was there just that much choice
of people that were interested in dating you?

Speaker 4 (01:01:36):
Yes, which that I think is the weirdest thing to
think of now, right because I look back and I go,
like I knew people would be like, oh, you know,
she only wants you for your money or this or
that I go, duh, you know what I mean? Like
you think I don't know that, Like, but I'm getting
what I want to so like we're good, right, So
was it interesting? Dynamic? I think back at it now

(01:01:59):
and I go, like, it is wild? How what am
I trying to say? There's no way if I was
not on TV that ninety nine percent of these women
would have wanted to be with it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
As a star factor.

Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
Yeah. So, you know, being so far removed from it
now as you know, someone who's married and you know,
not necessarily on TV and not kind of in the
in the height of my career like it is. So
it's such a foreign thought when I think back of
what my life was like from you know, sixteen to
twenty one, twenty two, The place I went, the things

(01:02:37):
I did, things, you know, the people I saw. What
are you going?

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
I think the last question that I want to know
and everyone wants to know, is when you went into
the jungle, it was very obvious that you had not
literally eaten anything else in your entire life other than
meat and burgers, and you were trying for the first time.
Strawberry's a thirty seven year old bananas mangoes strawberries, raspberries,
blueberry vegetables, like you had never putten this in your mouth?

Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
Have you maintained this new way of eating?

Speaker 4 (01:03:07):
So here's what's really funny. So when I left the jungle,
like the night I left the jungle, They're like, oh,
what do you want to eat? And I was like,
I'll just I'll take a steak and maybe some fries
or I don't know, and I ate a few bites
of it, and I actually got really sick, like tremendously sick.
So the next day they're like, what do you want

(01:03:28):
for breakfast? You can have whatever you want, and I
was like, just give me a little bit of scrambled
eggs and some pineapple. Norma I would be like, I
want sausage and Brench toasts and bacon and donuts. And
so I did really well, I would say for like
the first two weeks of not necessarily trying new things
or eating new foods, but just making smarter choices. But

(01:03:50):
then you have a burger or you have some ice cream,
and I feel like the last two weeks I have
gone off the deep end worse than I ever have.
There's I've had to have gained thirty pounds in the
past two weeks, it's been bad. But as far as
trying things, like I will say I got like kiwis,

(01:04:11):
I have Kiwis here and I've had a few of them,
and like there's things that I tried in the jungle
that I liked enough to where like I've purchased them
and I have them in my house. I have Hallumi
cheese in my fridge right now.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
Oh so exact it, No, Frank, you'd never eat in
Hallumi the best cheese of all time.

Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
It's I mean, it's still.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
A cheese though, isn't it right, Like when you haven't
eaten a Bengo and you're.

Speaker 4 (01:04:31):
Like, I'm not even a cheese person, like other than
American cheese, like fake cheese. I never had cheese. It's
not that like I don't like textures or when I'm hungry,
I want to eat what I know I like. So
it's very easy to order the same three things and
just eat those. So like I just did that for
thirty years, you know what I mean? Because food, to me,
like some people like to go eat, they like to

(01:04:52):
go to dinner, and the experience of trying new things
and being with people. Food to me, is a chore,
Like it is the I'm even right now, Like I'm
looking at the time going like, shoot, I have to
think about dinner, and that sucks. Right, So if I
could take a pill or have an IV that gave
me all the vitamins and nutrients I needed for the day,
and that would be the most ideal situation for me.

(01:05:15):
So I think that's what it's always been. When I
go to a restaurant, I usually go to the same
couple of restaurants and I don't look at the menu
because I know what I want there because I don't
want to try something and be disappointed. Yeah, because I
only have the twenty minutes that I have right then
to eat that food. And my life has just been
like that for thirty years.

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
It is a testament to the efficiency, right, Like that's
what that comes down to, Like you'll want to be
efficient means that you're like, don't even have the enjoyment
of what some people have when eight food.

Speaker 4 (01:05:43):
No, And that's one thing in the jungle, when you
take everything away. It's something I tell people about all
the time. The moment that that boar sausage came and
we got bread and the fact that we were literally
hugging each other screaming for joy over getting some Everything
is simple as a piece of bread, and I go
think of, like the how amazing an experience that is,

(01:06:07):
Because what in your life will truly make you jump
for joy and cry happy tears. There's very little things,
but when you strip everything down and that a piece
of bread can have that kind of impact on you
is an amazing thing. So I've tried to remember that
with everything in life, like not just take everything for granted,

(01:06:27):
you know what I mean, Like accept the positive and
the negative and everything, every experience and all the feelings.
Truly try to feel those feelings because for so long,
I don't think I even gave myself time to do that.
And that's the biggest thing I think I took away
from it. And I feel like I'm way less stressed.
I'm a way more genuinely happy person than I was

(01:06:48):
before I entered the jungle, where everything was like a
chore or like oh I gotta do this, like mad
that I had to do it. I'm excited to like
that that I realized that's my life, Like that's when
I'm doing those things, that's me living where I used
to think like I just had to do it to
get to me to start living, and that took kind
of being checked in the jungle for so long to realize.

(01:07:10):
And I think that's been the most positive experience the food.
I am willing to try things like there hasn't been
things that like my wife has made, or like we've
gone to restaurants and I have gotten I try it,
I'll eat it where before I like, No, I don't
want that, But I still have found myself in my
normal cycle of ordering the things that I like because
I like it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:29):
Frankie, I've genuinely missed talking to you.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Thank you so much for coming on past today, and
I really do hope you decided to pack up your family,
quit your whole life and move to Australia, because I
know we'll take.

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
You down on it. Yeah, Aussie's will take you one hundred.

Speaker 4 (01:07:42):
We've talked about it. I will say that we've talked
about it so but at least we need to come
for a visit and I will definitely see you and
everyone that I can, because such an amazing time with you,
and even this I'm happy to get to talk to.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
You and ketch up a little bit, Thanks Frankie

Speaker 4 (01:07:57):
Thank you guys, the baby and the Bay