“I was eight years old when the first season came out”: Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair star Kiana Madeira is ready to launch

If you grew up in the early 2000s, your evenings might have involved the following ritual: logging on to MSN Messenger on the family desktop, eating a scorching-hot pizza pop straight from the microwave and sitting down for an episode of Malcolm in the Middle, the fourth-wall-breaking portrait of suburban family life. But, in 2006, the show ended abruptly after seven seasons, leaving viewers in the dark about what happened to that comically dysfunctional family.

Two decades later, that question gets its answer with Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair, a four-episode revival reuniting (almost) the entire original cast, which lands on Disney Plus April 10. The reboot introduces Tristan, Malcolm’s kind-hearted girlfriend, played by Toronto-born actor Kiana Madeira. We chatted with her about landing the big role, her experience working with the legendary Bryan Cranston and her favourite place to get chicken wings in the GTA.

Did you watch the original Malcolm in the Middle series growing up? Yes. I was eight years old when the first season came out. The show was always on in our house, and my brother and I watched it constantly. There’s actually a photo of me on the first day of Grade 5, sitting at my desk reading the Malcolm in the Middle paperback. The brothers would get up to serious hijinks, and my siblings and I saw ourselves in them. Malcolm in the Middle gave viewers permission to find the humour in being part of a chaotic family working through their own issues. Getting the role was full circle for me.

What was your Toronto-to-LA pipeline like? I was born in Toronto and grew up in the GTA. When I was five, I was obsessed with the musical Grease and thought the only way to meet Danny Zuko was to become an actor. After five years of begging my parents, they realized that my desire to act wasn’t going away, so they let me sign on with an agency in Toronto.

I got my start in light-hearted roles, with a part in Really Me in 2011. But, as I got older, I gravitated toward horror, drama and action. In 2020, my now-husband, Lovell Adams-Gray, who’s also an actor, was filming Power Book II: Ghost in New York, and he asked me to come live with him. He proposed the day I arrived. We moved to LA last summer. It still feels like we’re on vacation.

In the reboot, you play Tristan, Malcolm’s super-sweet girlfriend. How did you hear about the role? It came through my Canadian agency team, since the show was shot in Vancouver. I saw Malcolm in the Middle in the title and thought, Okay, interesting. I figured it was a reboot with a different cast—then I read that Frankie Muniz, Jane Kaczmarek and Bryan Cranston were all coming back, and it went from interesting to iconic. I tried not to freak out.

After my first audition, I got a call back, then another. I flew to LA for a chemistry read with Frankie and Keeley Karsten, who plays Malcolm’s daughter, Leah. It was surreal. Frankie is so much like Malcolm in real life—in the best way—so it was like I was sitting with his character.

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What was it like working with Bryan Cranston? He’s incredible, so talented but also so generous. You never know what it will be like to meet your idols, but he did not disappoint. He was very father-like. Instead of going back to his trailer, he’d sit with us between scenes and make sure everyone was happy and feeling good.

In the scene where Hal meets Tristan for the first time, he literally buckles at the knees. Getting to do that physical comedy was so fun. Bryan brings this childlike joy and curiosity to everything he does. It really helped me not take the work too seriously.

How would you say the reboot differs from the original series? Malcolm had some girlfriends and crushes here and there in the original, but it’s all so different when you’re a kid. I’m excited to introduce new and old fans to the grown-up Malcolm. He has the same neurotic energy but with a bit more confidence. My character doesn’t want to change Malcolm—she loves exactly who he is and encourages him to lean into what he’s got. She’s always reassuring him and reminding him that he doesn’t have to prove how smart he is. She’s ride or die. Their relationship mirrors that of Malcolm’s parents, Lois and Hal, which I think helps Malcolm feel safer in his family relationships.

What did your prep process look like? We arrived in Vancouver two weeks before shooting, so we had a lot of time together as a cast before filming. We workshopped the backstories and developed the characters with Ken Kwapis, the director, and Linwood Boomer, the screenwriter, before getting in front of the camera. I loved that level of detail. Tristan is new to the family, so I didn’t have to pretend that there were years of history. Getting to experience everything in real time alongside her made it feel natural.

After we started shooting, I watched the show any time I wasn’t on set. As a kid, I read Lois as so hard on the boys, but now I see the amazing mother she is. There’s also a ton of adult humour I didn’t catch before. It was very fun homework.

Working with Frankie Muniz, how often did race cars come up? Race cars came up all the time. Frankie is such a hard worker—we’d film all week, then he’d fly out to race on the weekends. Keeley and I would Google his races to see how he’d performed. Back on set, he’d casually tell us about the crashes, including ones he was in. We’d be like, Uh, are you going to be okay for this scene? And he always was. He’s a great scene partner. He’s down to earth yet has this endless adrenalin-pumping energy you can feel coming off him.

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With the reboot being just four 25-minute episodes, do you think there’s a chance we’ll get a second season? I hope so! It leaves things pretty open-ended, and there’s still plenty of room to explore. As of yet there are no concrete plans—but I’ve got my fingers crossed.

What else is on the horizon for you? I have a couple of projects coming out this year. One is Baby Love, which I produced and starred in. I play an MMA fighter on the brink of self-destruction who does court-ordered equine therapy—fighter turns horse girl, in a nutshell. And then I’m in a survival thriller about a giant snake called Boiuna: Legend of the Amazon. It’s based on a mythical Brazilian creature called the Boiuna, and it follows a group of young doctors on a humanitarian mission.

What do you miss most about Toronto? I never lived downtown, so I love walking along Queen West. For food, I have a deep cut: the Clarkson Pump and Patio. It’s a sweet pub I worked at for five years. I’ll go on record and say they have the best chicken wings in the GTA.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.