“Malcolm in the Middle” is back, and a familiar face has stepped away from a big payday to return to the popular show.
Eric Perr Sullivan, who played Malcolm’s younger brother Dewey, turned down a role in the Disney+ reboot for “a lot of money,” according to former co-star Jane Kaczmarek.
Instead, the former child star, now 34, focused on her studies, earning a master’s degree in Victorian literature from Harvard University and staying out of the spotlight.
“He studies Dickens and is a great student,” Kaczmarek told the Guardian. “They gave him a lot of money to come back, but he just said, ‘No thank you.'”
The four-episode revival reunites Frankie Muniz as Malcolm, Bryan Cranston and Kaczmarek as Malcolm’s parents Hal and Lois, and Chris Masterson and Justin Barfield as Malcolm’s older brothers Francis and Reese, and tells the story of a grown-up Malcolm raising his daughter.
Speaking to the Post in November 2025, Muniz revealed that Sullivan is “very happy with the life he’s built outside of the entertainment world.”
“He made the decision that he didn’t want to go back to his old world, and we completely respect that,” he said, adding that no one in the cast wanted to “force Sullivan to do anything he didn’t want to do.”
“We had his blessing to have and recast this role on the show from day one. So I hope people aren’t too upset that he didn’t come back, but it was his choice.”
Sullivan starred in Malcolm in the Middle from 2000 to 2006, but hasn’t acted since 2010, and has largely stayed away from the public eye since then.
In April 2025, Sullivan was photographed leaving her home in Boston for coffee, her first public appearance in 18 years.
The show then tapped Fargo actor Caleb Ellsworth-Clark to play Dewey in the reboot.
“We started talking about a reboot more than 10 years ago,” Muniz told the Post.
“Then Bryan Cranston took the lead and pushed it forward. But early on, me and Brian were emailing everyone and saying things like, ‘Hey, would you be interested if this happened?'” Just measuring. ”
“And we knew early on that Eric wasn’t going to be part of it,” Muniz added.
