Bryan Cranston Rocked ‘A Little Speedo’ for First Day of Filming ‘Malcolm in the Middle’

While Frankie Muniz has made the transition to full-time NASCAR driver, he still has great memories of his hit sitcom Malcolm in the Middle. Although he confesses that he’s never spent a lot of time revisiting the show — “When it was on, I never watched it,” he told People — he’s still in touch with his co-stars, including TV pop Bryan Cranston.

"Bryan has been always such an incredible human,” Muniz says. Cranston has “almost become like a father figure to me. I spent probably more time with my fake family on TV than I did with my real family when we were filming.”

But Muniz didn’t get to meet the fake family’s patriarch until he prepared to film the first scenes of Malcolm in the Middle. “We hadn’t met Bryan because they didn’t cast Bryan, or whoever was going to play (Hal), until a few hours before we started filming,” Muniz explained. “And the first scene we filmed is from the pilot where my mom is shaving him in the kitchen while we’re eating breakfast.”

During that first meeting, Muniz got an eyeful and then some. “Bryan Cranston comes in wearing a little Speedo, you know what I mean? And he’s like, ‘Hey, I’m going to be your dad.’”

Whoa — do you look away? Shake the man’s hand? Invite him to a swim meet? It’s “just a memory that just sticks with you,” Muniz said, “because that was the beginning of a moment that really changed my life as far as the show.”

Muniz also has fond memories of his fully-clothed castmates. “You end up doing seven years, 151 episodes with this other family, and it’s just pretty cool,” Muniz told People. “We had so many fun memories together and fun times together. Like me and the boys really kind of became like brothers. We played together, we’d bicker together, we’d fight each other. We really felt like that... not sibling rivalry, but you have that sibling relationship. Because we were spending 12 hours a day with each other for seven years, you can’t help but be close.”

But the bare-skinned Cranston holds a special place in his heart. Since Malcolm, Muniz has tried several ventures — racecar driving, joining a band, starting an olive-oil company — and with each new one, Cranston has “always been so kind to reach out. And he’s always been so supportive of all those things."

That’s more support than a tiny bathing suit can provide. What’s up with Cranston and Speedos anyway? Hal also stripped down to the bare minimum in the show’s third season, where he provided the only plausible explanation: “I like the little ones!”