About a month ago Frankie started a spontaneous competition (#frankiemunizcontest) on Twitter asking followers questions, with the first getting the right answer winning signed Malcolm in the Middle scripts. If I’d know before hand I would have thrown up a post.
He asked “What is my middle name?” – He doesn’t have one, ‘James’ is a common mistake. “In the pilot episode of Malcolm In The Middle, what color of paint does Malcolm have all over his ass???” – Any self respecting fan knows its red. “What is my all-time favorite food??” – Many said ‘Hamburgers’ also based on the very old and inaccurate FrankieMuniz.co.uk, I had no idea but the answer is Baby Back Ribs. “What was my character’s name in the film Stay Alive??” – ‘Swink’“How many episodes of Malcolm In The Middle was I in..?” – Now personally, not a great question because the answer isn’t crystal clear it depends how you define ‘in’ and how many episodes you think there are. Most people consider Company Picnic to be two separate episodes, however they did originally air as one, so 150 or 151 episodes total. Frankie is not credited as appearing in Clip Show #2 because only previous footage was used of him, nothing shot for the episode, thus debatable whether he was ‘in’ the episode or not? Regardless Frankie had the final say, and he went with 150 (Frankie doesn’t count Clip Show #2, interestingly he doesn’t get royalties from it).
He promised another #frankiemunizcontest and it may happen today or tomorrow, he said he’d start it when he reached 12,000 followers.
Malcolm in the Middle creator (read: genius) Linwood Boomer turns 54 today, we here at the VC hope he is having a great day!
Sadly for Boomer his latest TV pilot The Karenskys wasn’t picked up by CBS this year. It could possibly still happen, however information is lacking, I for one would sure love to see it, so we can only hope other networks see sense!
18 June 2009 – Its been rare in recent years to see more than two Malcolm cast members together, but the Academy Of Television Arts And Sciences (the organisation behind the Emmys) held a Father’s Day ‘Salute To TV Dads’ event and Frankie Muniz (Malcolm) and Jane Kaczmarek (Lois) went to recognise Bryan Cranston and his portrayal of Hal (and his more recent Walter White in Breaking Bad).
Bryan joined other beloved screen dads Dick Van Patten, Dick Van Dyke, Reginald VelJohnson, Patrick Duffy, Michael Gross, Bill Paxton, Jon Cryer and Stephen Collins. Bryan chatted about his dad, influences and the ‘birds and the bees’ in the above video. Below Frankie (with girlfriend Elycia Marie) talks about growing up with Bryan.
TV Guide has rated 2×20 Bowling as the 90th best TV episode of all time, based on? well nothing, just their opinion but if anyone is to rate TV episodes TV Guide is a good bet, we of course would argue the top 100 would just consist of Malcolm episodes, but then again, we are a little biased! But its great to get the mention.
Renowned TV critic Tim Goodman from San Francisco Chronicle recently asked “Has there ever been a funny family sitcom? Can parenting be funny on TV?”
“Malcolm,” though it lost viewers (but not its creativity) in the latter years, successfully presented a live-action version of “The Simpsons” (perhaps the greatest “family” show ever). The success of “Malcolm” was that it made the difficult, hilarious and stressful nature of raising kids funny and in the process it gave us child actors that didn’t make us wretch at their cuteness. Nothing worse than a 4 year old girl talking like she’s 35.
I’d vote “The Simpsons,” “Arrested Development” and “Malcolm In the Middle” into my upper echelon. I also love “King of the Hill.” But you’d get more points for a live action series with small children (again, I think “Malcolm” is the front-runner there), because that’s a lot harder to pull off.
Leave is and independent thriller directed by Robert Celestino and written by Rick Gomez and Frank John Hughes (Band of Brothers), about a novelist and his encounters on a road trip. Bryan plays Elliot whom he describes as the comic relief character.
Its currently in post production and looking at a 2010 release. Bryan said in a recent live Q&A it may be at the Sundance film festival (January 2010).
In other news:8 August 2009 – Bryan emceed the Dennis Hopper honorarium/awards ceremony at the first Albuquerque Film Festival.
You can bid right now on a gift bag with various products including Malcolm and Breaking Bad merchandise put together by Bryan.
Includes: Antonias nuts, Carmex lip products, Coccinelle Clutch. The Cocktail Hours, Dentaburst, Elyse Ryan jewelry, Hairzing, Hands2go hand sanitizer, Hip Heirlooms, Jumpin Jammerz, Lacoste sunglasses, Charlie Lapson products, Madbags, NuSkin products, Robert Graham merchandise, Sculptz tights, Sorme products, S.T. Dupont USB Drive, TC Intimates products, a Malcolm in the Middle hat, a signed Breaking Bad DVD, signed Breaking Bad pilot script signed by cast, and a Malcolm in the Middle signed script.
At time of posting the highest bid is $225. Bidding ends 13 October 2009.
Red Tails is a long-awaited George Lucas-produced drama about the Tuskegee Airmen, a WWII airborne unit comprised of African-American pilots. Bryan plays Major William Mortamus a racist officer in the U.S. Army of the 1940s.
“I play the bad guy,” says Cranston. “I’m a colonel, racist, bigoted, who does not want to give the Tuskegee Airmen an opportunity to show what they can do. What I tried to do [as an actor] is to convey the sense that I didn’t hate these people – I’m trying to protect them from embarrassing themselves and the United States Army because [in the character’s mind] they’re just not capable. ‘I wouldn’t allow a dog to be in a tank and ruin the tank or kill the dog, either. And you’re sending up these ‘boys’ in these intricate machines, and it’s not going to end good, and shame on us for allowing that to happen.’ And that’s the point of view, which I think is scarier [than outright hatred], actually, that he just completely believes in that.”
In comparing the character of Walt (Breaking Bad) to Major Martamus, Cranston says they’re very different…
“There’s no real comparison,” he says. “I try to make it feel like you’re completely a different being. You’re a human being, but you have a different set of characteristics and circumstances and upbringing and influences and education and all that stuff. So it’s almost like shedding skin, like a snake, and then you put on new wardrobe or new facial hair or not and it changes the way you feel. And wardrobe helps a lot. So you can design from the outside in and at the same time, go from the inside out. It’s really cool.”
It finished filming in Prague several months ago and is currently in post production,IMDB have it as a 2009 release but I believe this to be incorrect and we are not likely to see it until sometime next year.
‘BREAKING BAD’s’ BRYAN CRANSTON TALKS LUCASFILM’S ‘RED TAILS’
by Abbie Bernstein – 30 July 2009 – iFMagazine.com
iF: Do you fly a plane at any point in this?
CRANSTON: No. No flying at all. I’m at desks the entire time.
iF: What’s going on with RED TAILS right now?
CRANSTON: RED TAILS is in post-production. We finished shooting in Prague and I had a great time and I really became a fan of [RED TAILS star] Terrence Howard as a person. I was already a fan of him as an actor, but now also as a person – he’s a gentleman and created an environment that we were able to have some fun in and do our jobs well. There are a lot of [effects] ILM is going to do, that George Lucas’ organization is going to take care of.
iF: Is there anything different about working at Lucasfilm than working for other production companies?
CRANSTON: I didn’t notice anything different. It’s filmmaking. They have a budget they have to stay within and our job is to convey truthfulness. [The RED TAILS director is] Anthony Hemingway, a young man who is a great director and directed, I believe, mostly in television up until now. He had a tremendous passion for this, Lucas believed in him and gave him a shot. I enjoyed his work.
iF: How did you come to be involved in RED TAILS?
CRANSTON: I can honestly say that it was something that I wanted to do. I certainly didn’t have to do it. It wasn’t a large role, but it was an important role. I always want to be a part of something that’s important, and the telling of this story of the Tuskegee Airmen is American history is important. Whether we’re proud of it or not [in terms of showing the racism of the period] doesn’t matter. It’s important to tell this history and I got to play the character that represented the roadblock to their lives. There’s a lot of greatness to America and there’s a lot that we need to apologize for and I think that’s what’s happened. I feel totally against [the belief] that America can do no wrong. That’s not true. Just like a human being, we [as a country] are fully capable of doing wrong, but when we do wrong, own up to it, admit it, be responsible for it, pay the price of it, move on and learn from it.
1 August 2009 – The Television Critics Awards (TCA) Awards honour television excellence, so of course Bryan won this year for Individual Achievement in Drama for Breaking Bad!
The TCA Awards are one of the few where you know you’ve won before hand, so the Breaking Bad cast went along with him (to The Langham Resort, Pasadena, CA) to help celebrate. He beat out Glenn Close (Damages), Walton Goggins (The Shield), Jon Hamm (Mad Men) and Hugh Laurie (House). Breaking Bad itself was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Drama but didn’t win.
Malcolm in the Middle’s dad has a new vocation.
by Howard Halle – March 2009 – timeout.com
This is our Secret Lives of New Yorkers issue. Do you have any New York secrets?
I used to live on the Upper West Side in the early 1980s, and I remember going up on my roof, taking gourds and a watermelon, and tossing them into the street.
The old Dave Letterman trick! Why did you do that?
I don’t know. There must have been some kind of alcohol involved.
I have a secret. I have a man-crush on Walt White. He’s my iChat icon.
Well…Howard…
I know, it’s weird, right?
No, no, I get it…
It has something to do with your evident comfort wearing nothing but tighty-whiteys on every TV show you’ve ever starred in.
And less than that, if you watch episode three this season.
What is up with that?
I don’t know why, but this is the second series that I’ve been asked to do that. For Malcolm in the Middle, I chose the tighty-whitey underwear for that character because I felt he was still a boy. For Breaking Bad, it was written into the pilot script that he’s in tighty-whiteys, driving an RV with a respirator on, and two dead guys sliding around in the back. That’s what got me to take the part.
So now you’re the go-to guy for that sort of thing.
I once had an acting teacher who used to say, “You have to be willing to be naked in front of people.” I thought he meant literally, so I just started taking my clothes off. [Laughs] I’m joking, of course.
At least you didn’t do that on the Emmys. By the way, congratulations on winning for this show. It must have made up for all of those times you lost out to Brad Garrett.
Brad sent a truly lovely note to me afterwards, and it really meant a lot to me, because he knew that he beat me out year after year.
Did that ever bother you?
People ask me that. But if it’s not Brad Garrett, then it’s Sean Hayes. If it’s not Sean Hayes, then it ’s David Hyde Pierce. How can I really be upset about that? Now, if I’d lost to Carrot Top I’d probably go, Man, that sucks!
And now, you’re beating out Jon Hamm! Plus, it looks like you’ve learned how to cook meth. That could come in handy.
We had a DEA guy come on set, and he showed me. Obviously, when our characters are making the drug, we do it in a montage format, so it doesn’t become a how-to video. We don’t want to aid and abet.
But in a pinch you could whip up a batch.
Yeah, I could, and do a little side business.
It wouldn’t be your first sideline. I read that you were an ordained minister in college.
In the Universal Life Church. I performed weddings.
Really?
I did about a dozen. I did one for a couple on a plane. I did one dressed as Elvis. I did one once in a bunny suit. The minimum wage back in 1974 was, like, $1.75. I was getting $150 per wedding, so I thought, Absolutely, sign me up!
Sounds like a good way to make money for anyone getting laid off.
There you go! Either that or professionally throwing gourds off of buildings, if there was ever a need.
Bryan talks gaining and loosing weight with John Stahl from examiner.com…
Cranston additionally talked about how the role affected his weight; he stated that he brought his weight up to 186 pounds as one aspect of portraying the fact that White had determined at some point in the past 25 years that he did not care very much about his appearance. When asked if he ate anything special to gain the weight, Cranston responded with his infectious enthusiasm “I ate everything I saw; I had seconds of everything; I said no to nothing.”
When asked if he had lost weight because White had begun chemotherapy during the first season and would be continuing it in the second, Cranston stated that he began dieting during the first season. Cranston told me that he cut out carbohydrates, saying “for a man, it’s the easiest thing to remember.” He said too that he otherwise ate everything that he wanted but did so as several small meals throughout the day.
Cranston also provided me his recipe for the breakfast treat that became known as “the Cranston” on the “Breaking Bad” set. He said that it consisted of scrambled egg whites, grilled vegetables and grilled turkey, feta cheese and a choice of red or green chilis. He shared too that he has lost 16 pounds over the course of filming the show. Cranston then stated that chilis were a staple of people’s diet in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where all of “Breaking Bad” was filmed.
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