Frankie Muniz says trading Los Angeles for Arizona changed everything.
The 40-year-old actor, who rose to fame as one of Hollywood’s highest-paid child stars, told Fox News Digital that stepping away from Los Angeles gave him perspective he didn’t have before. Muniz spent many years in L.A. while starring in “Malcolm in the Middle,” among other notable projects, before shifting to full-time racing.
“I say moving to Arizona from Los Angeles saved my life in the sense that I just really started enjoying the little aspects of life. I realized I left my house like just looking down all the time. And when I moved to Arizona, I started looking up.”
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Muniz said the slower pace in Arizona helped him reconnect with everyday life in a way L.A. never allowed.
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“I mean, going to the store, like just doing things, was a lot easier. Los Angeles was just very hectic and busy, and everyone’s kind of in Hollywood trying to be seen or whatever it may be, and just really wasn’t my cup of tea.”
Muniz said Arizona offered a sense of normalcy he couldn’t find in L.A., where the culture often kept him indoors and disconnected from everyday life.
He explained, “Moving to Arizona definitely allowed me to… it made me want to do more normal things, if that makes sense. I found myself in Los Angeles just staying at my house unless I had to go to work. I just didn’t really want to leave.”
WATCH: FRANKIE MUNIZ SAYS LEAVING HOLLYWOOD ‘SAVED MY LIFE’ AS HE REVEALS WHY ARIZONA CHANGED EVERYTHING
Muniz is one of many celebrities who have stepped away from Hollywood for a more private, simplified family life. He now enjoys the desert lifestyle in Arizona with his wife, Paige, and their 4-year-old son, Mauz. As he put it, “It was the little things that became, ‘Oh wait, this is actually what life is. This is what life is supposed to be.’ And I just grew to love it.”
Muniz also shared a childhood story that shaped his connection to Arizona long before he lived there.
“This is going to sound really creepy, but I’m going to tell you the story I don’t think I’ve ever told publicly.”
While filming “My Dog Skip” as a kid in New Orleans, he visited the French Quarter with his family.
“We were in the French Quarter, and we all got our palms read,” he said, explaining that during the reading, he heard something that stayed with him for years.
“The guy read my palm, and he goes, ‘Do you want to know who you were in your past life?’… He said I was a judge in the old Southwest defending the Native Americans.”
Muniz had never been west of the Mississippi River at the time, but the prediction came rushing back when he eventually set foot in Arizona.
“The minute I came to Arizona for the first time, I felt like that’s where I was meant to be.”
Today, he says that feeling hasn’t changed.
“I love the desert, I love the weather… Every time I leave my house I’m happy to be based where I am because I just love where I live.”
As he settled into life in Arizona, Muniz began thinking about what he wanted the next chapter of his career to look like — including whether racing, which he first started doing in 2006, still fit into it.
“Well, a lot of the reason that I went back racing was because of my son,” he said.
WATCH: FRANKIE MUNIZ REVEALS THE EMOTIONAL MOMENT WITH HIS NEWBORN SON THAT PUSHED HIM BACK INTO RACING
“I think most people usually are the opposite,” he said. “Like, they slow down, you know, they have a kid, they go, ‘Oh, I don’t want to… sell the motorcycles,’ you know, like I don’t want to do anything dangerous.”
For Muniz, the shift happened the moment he first held his newborn.
“But I was holding my son in the hospital the day he was born. And I was looking at him, I had this really weird thought of like, who is my son going to grow up thinking that his dad is, or like what I do.”
He said he realized his entire career in acting, music and business lived in the past tense.
“Everything I’d done was in my past. You know, I used to be an actor, I used to be in a band, I used to race cars, I used to own these businesses, whatever it was.”
He continued, “But I wanted him to see me working really, really hard for something that is not easy, right? That very few people really make it to that level and then have success in that level is tough. And I decided right then that I wanted to go back to racing.”
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Muniz said he hopes his son sees both the effort and the honesty behind his career choices.
“I’m using it as inspiration, for me to be a role model for him, but also for him,” he said. “I want him to grow up and see what hard work and dedication can do for you… nothing is easy about what I’m doing, but I’m showing him that.”
For now, his young son is fully on board.
“Right now he likes that daddy’s a race car driver.”
The NASCAR and GT4 America driver admitted that he’d thought that last year would be his “last year racing,” explaining that the sport requires more than people might think.
“Dedicating the time, the effort, everything that goes into being a full-time race car driver is way more than just showing up to the racetrack… It’s really a full-time job,” he shared.
WATCH: FRANKIE MUNIZ COMMITS TO 42-RACE SEASON, SAYS HE HAS ‘UNFINISHED BUSINESS’ IN THE WORLD OF PRO RACING
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But everything changed after his final race of the season.
“I had that last race in Phoenix, and I was like, there’s no way that was it. There’s no way I’m done,” he said. “I’ve got way too much unfinished business in the racing world.”
Now, he’s preparing for the busiest season of his career.
“I have 42 races planned for next year, so it’ll be a very busy schedule, but I’m very, very excited.”
