‘Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair’ Creator & EP Wife On Bryan Cranston’s “Constant Nudity,” Channeling “Parental Pressure” & Representing Their LGBTQ Kids: “Really Important To Us”

As Malcolm in the Middle returns after 20 years, creator Linwood Boomer and his wife/executive producer Tracy Katsky had plenty of family moments to look back on for inspiration.

While discussing the revival Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair, all four episodes now available to stream on Hulu, the couple told Deadline how they were inspired by the “parental pressure” they’ve experienced while raising their own four children.

“It’s in there because I don’t know what else to write except the stuff that’s really happening around me,” explained Boomer.

One part of the revival that reflects their own family life is the addition of Malcolm’s non-binary sibling Kelly (Vaughan Murrae), with whom his mom Lois (Jane Kaczmarek) discovered she was pregnant in the original show’s 2006 finale.

“I gotta tell you, it’s a really important thing to us,” noted Katsky. “Three out of four of our kids are queer, and without making it a thing and without making an issue, I think it’s really nice to have a character that, that’s just a facet of their personality as opposed to the entire story.”

In Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair, Frankie Muniz reprises his once-angsty teenage character, who is now a father of his own. When his parents Hal (Bryan Cranston) and Lois (Kaczmarek) demand his presence at their anniversary party, Malcolm is forced to stop avoiding his dysfunctional family while attempting to protect his daughter Leah (Keeley Karsten) from their chaotic dynamic.

While Boomer pulled inspiration from his own mother, who was “such a powerful presence in the house,” in creating Lois during the original Fox show’s 2000-’06 run, he and Statsky have also included elements of their own parental journey in the revival.

“There’s something about parental pressure, that you realize when you’re old enough to be a parent, and for Malcolm, finally a parent, you realize everyone’s just doing their best,” explained Statsky. “And everyone really is coming at it with the best intentions. Lois genuinely doesn’t mean to fuck up these kids. She genuinely thinks that everything she does is for the sake of good parenting, and Hal too. … It’s nice to be able to have people realize that there’s very few purposeful villains in parenting.”

Read on about how Malcolm in the Middle: Life is Unfair reflects Linwood Boomer and Tracy Katsky’s own family.

DEADLINE: Tell me how your mom inspired the original show and how your life as parents now comes into play with this revival.

LINWOOD BOOMER: I feel like I should actually be on my back going, “well, my mother was—.” my mom was a real force, and she sort of loomed over everything when we were kids. I kind of felt like we had Godzilla living in the house with us, except a Godzilla who could talk and make dinner. She was not like a cruel monster, but she was just such a powerful presence in the house. And a lot of the stuff in that pilot was stuff she did. There was a lot of, when I was a kid, a lot of inappropriate nudity. I mean, it wasn’t a big house and my parents didn’t give a shit. The shaving thing is real. My mom would shave my dad, they put out newspapers. My mom actually said, “You know, it’s a shame to waste this stuff. I’ll bet birds would like to make nests out of it.” We’re like, “What the fuck, mom?” And then she put it out and they did! I’d go in the backyard and watch birds come and get it, and it was just like, “Ew!”

TRACY KATSKY: You never told me that. You only told me the first part. That’s horrible.

BOOMER: It’s in the show. What are you talking about?

KATSKY: But I thought that was a joke.

BOOMER: But yeah, she was like that. Pretty much everything in the pilot was some version of something my mom actually did. And with the new one, I did the same thing. It was kind of to write something that wasn’t just a retread or a cash grab. It’s like, “Well, here’s what’s happened to me and a lot of the parenting things that are so different than even Hal and Lois’ parenting things were back then.” I was a parent too when I wrote Malcolm, and this one was after having two more kids and experiencing that and having girls … and having really, really smart kids. That was a challenge I was not ready for.

DEADLINE: Yeah, it’s nice to see Lois finally have a daughter, or a non-binary kid, which also made me feel very seen that Malcolm has a non-binary sibling now.

KATSKY: I gotta tell you, it’s a really important thing to us. Three out of four of our kids are queer, and without making it a thing and without making an issue, I think it’s really nice to have a character that, that’s just a facet of their personality as opposed to the entire story. So we’re really happy, and I’m glad to hear that you liked it.

BOOMER: Also, I mean, it’s in there because I don’t know what else to write except the stuff that’s really happening around me.

DEADLINE: I also loved the fact that Stevie is gay with his own family too. What was it like bringing the family back together after 20 years and bringing Frankie Muniz out of on-screen retirement and all that?

BOOMER: It was great. It was easy, we’d all stayed in touch over the years because the first Malcolm was such a good experience, and all the people were really nice. I was the least nice person there.

KATSKY: Yeah, bottom 1%.

BOOMER: Yeah. It’s where I’m most comfortable, And so, once I had a good enough idea, everyone got on board, except Erik, who’s not an actor anymore. But you know, again, we stayed friends, we talked to him last week. He’s doing great, he just didn’t want to be an actor anymore. But, when everyone got back, the best description of it was Chris Masterson said, “This is like summer camp.” It feels like, you go and you have these intense relationships, and then you go away and you don’t see each other at all for a long time. And then you come back and it’s like, “Oh, you guys! This is great. Let’s have fun again.”

KATSKY: And everyone kind of fits into their old roles, but not in a bummer way. Everyone kind of drops into their happy spots.

DEADLINE: It was so cool in the final episode just to see all of those cameos of the original stars returning. It just really made my heart warm.

BOOMER: Yeah, and some of that was, people are gonna want to see this, but a lot of it too was, I love those actors.

DEADLINE: And one thing I’ve always loved about the original show and now in the revival is, Hal’s love for Lois is so intense and it’s so great seeing them celebrate their anniversary. Did that reflect any of your relationship, and why is it so important for Lois to wanna show her love?

BOOMER: We actually had a story where Lois was sort of upset because she was sort of hating the fact that Hal never even looked at another woman, and she says, “Well, I mean, I don’t cheat, but you know what, I look. It’s normal, it feels normal, and if you don’t even look, that means you love me more than I love you.” And Hal goes, “Yeah, of course I love you more. Are you kidding? If you loved me as much as I love you, we’d never leave the house. Nothing would get done.”

KATSKY: That’s pretty much us.

BOOMER: But also, to me, that was one of the things, like, “Why do an anniversary?” I didn’t want it to just be an excuse to bring the old actors back. I just wanted it to have some meaning, and I loved the idea of Lois fixating on this, and you kind of think, “Is that really Lois?” It didn’t seem like the kind of thing she would fixate on, and then at the end, when you realize why she’s been so fixated on it—one of my favorite lines is when Hal says, “No one’s ever done that for me.” And she says, “No one’s ever let us.”

DEADLINE: And I loved his musical number in the opening episode. Tell me about working with Bryan again after all these years, after he’s gone on to do so many other things, and have him reprise the role of Hal and return to all of this physical comedy that he’s so great with.

BOOMER: A lot of people, when he started doing Breaking Bad, were like, “Were you shocked that he was capable of doing this?” And I was like, “No!” And by the way, talk to anyone else who’s worked with him in the last 20 years, no one was shocked. Everyone knew, anyone who’s worked with him knows what he can do. And it was lovely and gratifying to see, but it wasn’t a surprise. He made me expect it, just because he knows what he’s doing, and he’s still better than anyone at that kind of thing.

KATSKY: I mean, that third episode, just for pure Bryan acting, is unbelievable. And we were sitting there in the moment kind of realizing, he does this one speech that’s an incredible turn from, everything’s fine to crying, and it’s so real and you’re so with him. We were like, “Oh, that’s right, it’s fucking Bryan Cranston.”

BOOMER: And if it wasn’t done in one take, it was because of a fuck-up on our end, or something that wasn’t good enough on our end. He’s really a master.

KATSKY: And a delight too. He’s so easy to work with. I mean, there’s some history.

BOOMER: Yeah, the screaming fits.

KATSKY: Oh yeah, the cruelty.

DEADLINE: The nudity.

KATSKY: The constant nudity.

BOOMER: The amount of nudity he forces us to put into the show…

DEADLINE: I know this is just a four-episode run, but is there a possibility of extending this revival and maybe revisiting some other characters?

BOOMER: I don’t know. We don’t know. It was a great experience. It was done as a sort of contained thing because that’s the only way it could happen, given Bryan’s schedule and Frankie’s interests.

KATSKY: There’s no plans right now. There’s no secret agendas. There’s no conversations. There’s no nothing. It started being this, and it ended being this, so anything else would be new again.

DEADLINE: Well, I was gonna say I am curious to maybe see Leah’s mom someday, but I do love this dynamic with Malcolm as a single dad and feeling so much pressure to want his daughter to like his girlfriend. That was just a really cute dynamic. Can you tell me about building that for Malcolm?

BOOMER: It was one of those things where, my relationships with my kids are pretty much where, before any interaction, I’m going like, “OK, well they might think this, and I’ll do this, and they’ll like this, and you know what, I’ll do this because then they’ll know that—” And then, it totally doesn’t work, because they’re ahead of me on something, or come up with something that with hours and hours of planning, didn’t occur to me. And with him, just with every step, he’s so careful about everything and plans everything, and it’s still a mess. And a lot of it is a mess because his daughter is too smart for these things being set up for him. I mean, I love that moment when she just says, “How much did he prep you?” And she just wants to know. She’s not particularly annoyed about it or upset about it, she just wants to know.

KATSKY: It’s hard having smart kids.

DEADLINE: I love that there’s a reference to the finale about Lois’ plans for him and how much pressure that put on him. That’s such a very real thing, that life doesn’t always go according to plan, but it can still be great.

BOOMER: I think that we had made such a clear statement, and it’s very Lois, and especially for a teenage boy, that the mom says, “You’re gonna be president of the United States … You’ll be the first president that ever gave a shit about people like us and that’s what you’re gonna do.” And he’s like, “What are you talking about?” She says, “Look me in the eye and tell me you can’t do it.” And that really landed, and I felt like that was so powerful to that character, to Malcolm, hearing something like that, that that is going to stay with him for decades.

KATSKY: There’s something about parental pressure, that you realize when you’re old enough to be a parent, and for Malcolm, finally a parent, you realize everyone’s just doing their best. And everyone really is coming at it with the best intentions. Lois genuinely doesn’t mean to fuck up these kids. She genuinely thinks that everything she does is for the sake of good parenting, and Hal too. I think that scene was sort of important. It’s like, “Everything we did, we did for you.” It’s nice to be able to have people realize that there’s very few purposeful villains in parenting.