Frankie Muniz isn't an easy guy to talk to.
It's not that the star of television's Malcolm in the Middle isn't pleasant and engaging. In fact, he's mannerly, animated and enthusiastic during an interview, like you're the first one ever to ask him the same questions he's been answering for years.
The problem is, it's hard to know how to address Muniz. He's a skinny, rosy-cheeked 15-year-old who looks like he's going on 10. As Malcolm, he plays a 12-year-old genius going on 40. See the problem? There's always the danger of speaking beneath him or over his head.
"I feel a lot older now," Muniz said with a smile during a recent interview.
"I mean, I am older now than when we first did the pilot. That was two years ago, and I've grown about a foot."
If you didn't know he was the star of the Fox network's highest-rated comedy, you could confuse Muniz for just another kid who wants to buy the Clippers when he grows up.
Born in New Jersey and raised for a while in North Carolina, he's the kind of kid who likes to play soccer or jump ramps on his scooter. He listens to the Blue Man Group and thought appearing in a music video recently with They Might Be Giants was one of the coolest things he's ever done.
He can add one more thing to his list of cool: He provided the voice of Lisa Simpson's new boyfriend on The Simpsons this week.
"I don't really like when people say, 'Oh, you're famous; you're famous!' I'm just the same person I always was. It's just that more people recognize me now," he insisted. "The only difference is, I get to do all these awesome things. I get to meet all these other famous people that I always watch on TV. It's so cool."
By now, you'd think Muniz, who started his career in community theatre followed by a series of TV movies, would be used to the perks that come with celebrity. Since the show's debut more than a year ago, his star has been on the rise. Along with the acclaim and ratings Malcolm draws, he has branched out into movies with the acclaimed big-screen feature My Dog Skip.
Teen People named him one of the hottest stars working today. He also recently won a People's Choice Award for best young star in a comedy series.
"He's always been a good kid," said Denise Muniz, his mother. "He's been a pretty easy kid growing up. I do want him to always be respectful of everybody."
Unlike his childhood, Muniz, who is home-schooled, is seeing his teen years through a celebrity's eyes. That doesn't keep him from feeling like an outsider sometimes.
"There are a lot of times when I want to go out and everyone says, 'You can't do that because you're on TV.' It's like, 'I'm a kid, too.' I go anyway. I hang out with my friends and do what they would do.
"I'll go to the park near my house, put on a hat and some grungy clothes, and play basketball. I'll be in the middle of a basketball game and signing autographs."
Muniz says he finds peers at an apartment complex that's filled with child actors. "I like hanging out with them because they understand," he says, "but I like hanging out with normal kids, too. It's weird to call them 'normal,' you know?"
You can't get any more of a normal scene than seeing Muniz and his mother at the grocery store together. "He's pushing the cart, and she's picking things up," says Margie Barren, a freelance writer who lives in their neighborhood. "He's taking things off the shelf, and she's telling him to put it back. He's asking her to drop him off at the local basketball court at the park.
"I've been covering the teen scene for close to 20 years. He is the most normal show-biz kid I have ever met."
Then, there's the abnormal reality of his life. One room of his house is devoted to fan mail, and "it's completely full," Muniz said.
All this comes at a time when he's exerting his independence. "We used to do everything together. Now he does things apart from me," his mother said.
"Work makes him happy. We had two weeks off over Christmas, and I thought it went very quickly, but if you ask him how his break went, he'd tell you he was bored. He's a kid who, whenever he finds something he likes or enjoys, he puts a lot of passion into it."
He is prepared if, as is the case with so many child stars, the career fizzles out as he gets older. "He knows it could end any time," his mother said. "He'll tell you right now that he wants to go to college. I see that he can go into adulthood [roles]if he wants to."
On the set, there's no forgetting Muniz is not an adult yet. "I think what works for us on the show," said TV mom Jane Kaczmarek, "is that I don't think there are many mothers who have the kind of relationship that Lois and Malcolm have. It's not really touchy-feely."
And in real life, the Kaczmarek-Muniz relationship mirrors that. "If he is goofing up and I walk by, he straightens up," she said laughing, "and that's good. I get to go home quicker from the set."
Malcolm in the Middle airs at 8:30 p.m. EDT, Sundays on Fox and Global.