Photography by Jeff Newton

Frankie Muniz is best known as the star of the hit TV show Malcolm in the Middle and movie Agent Cody Banks, but last year, he abruptly pulled up his Hollywood roots and made the bold move to Scottsdale.
Another bold move? He’s tossing aside his acting career to pursue professional Indy racecar driving. Now, Muniz says, he feels more in control of his destiny. After just two years of driving, he finished 11th out of 30 drivers for the season, making himself a future contender.
An actor since age 8, Muniz, now 22, has lived a glamorous if not exhausting life. He sat down with PHOENIX magazine recently, in the offices of Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment in Mesa, to explain why he traded the Hills for the Valley.

What prompted the move to Scottsdale?
I’m originally from New Jersey [and] I kind of transferred into Los Angeles when I booked Malcolm in the Middle at 12 years of age. However, I just never really felt I was totally at home there…. Since Malcolm ended two, three years ago, I’ve been trying to find someplace to move, and Scottsdale was always on my list.
I’ve come here often for work, and I’ve always been put up in beautiful resorts. I’ve always felt Scottsdale was an amazing place to wake up to. I met my girlfriend, E-L-Y-C-I-A [he spells out her name as he looks at her, laughing], about a year ago, and we were just fixing up my house in Los Angeles, buying things, when I turned to her and said, ‘Would you ever want to move back to Scottsdale?’, since she actually grew up here. Her response was ‘Yeah!’ So the next day, we left L.A. Three days later, we found a house, bought it, and 30 days later we moved in, and I haven’t been to L.A. since.

What is a typical day like for you here?
I wake up, we go to the gym, and I’m motivated. I feel way more relaxed, but I’m way more motivated to get stuff done. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been as far as being at home. I actually miss my house when I leave. You know, when I was younger, I used to go on the road and feel like I loved being on the road, and now, I can’t wait to come home and spend time at home…. I can say that I believe it’s saved me as a person, that it saved my life…. I was so motivated to move, I packed up the truck myself and drove it back and forth, literally five times, and we were so stressed out with moving and I was still in the middle of the race season.
The first week we were here, I remember saying to my girlfriend that I finally felt right, breathing and smelling the air and feeling alive. Every time I drive into my neighborhood, I look up and see beautiful Pinnacle Peak and it makes me feel good inside.

What’s your idea of a perfect day in Arizona?
Just being here is a perfect day; I love every aspect of it. I was talking to a friend just the other day and he was telling me he wanted to come visit. I was telling him, ‘If you come here, you won’t want to leave.’ When he asked why, I told him, ‘Just going to the grocery store is like perfection.’ I think I’m a lot calmer as well. In L.A., I was spending my days there going from one thing to another because that’s what people told me to do.... [Now] I can have a more normal life.

Why racing?
I’ve always been this huge racing fan my whole life. I can remember when I was 5 or 6 years old waking up really, really early in the morning to watch Formula One and CART racing. I think it’s every young guy’s dream to be a racecar driver. I never considered it a reality that I’d ever become one, but I did the Pro-Celebrity Race in Long Beach in 2005, and I won that, and I had the time of my life doing that…. A team came to me and signed me for a two-year deal to race Formula BMWs in the Atlantic Series and here I am now, I’m a professional racecar driver…. Acting and racing are both full-time jobs, and you can only dedicate yourself to one of them if you want to be successful.

With racing in the off-season, what are you up to?
I am in the midst now of helping to make the rogue racer character created for me in Stargate Worlds, a new mass multiplayer online role-playing game [for fans of the TV show] that is due to come out soon. I’m in their offices today to do the ‘blue-suit work’ so they can program body movement and stuff like that. I am finalizing a sponsorship that will have me racing under Team Stargate Worlds, owned by Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, located here in Mesa.
— Interviewed by Nancy M. Dickinson