Erik Per Sullivan surfaced in Boston on April 3, a rare public appearance for the former child actor just days before Malcolm in the Middle: Life's Still Unfair begins streaming on Hulu on April 10. He will not be part of the revival, even as nearly all of his former castmates return.
The 34-year-old, who played Dewey in the original Fox comedy, has kept an extremely low profile since leaving acting at age 14. His appearance came almost exactly one year after a similar casual outing in Boston in March 2025, reinforcing how little he has changed his life since stepping away from the camera. Bryan Cranston said he spoke with Sullivan last June and told him the show was coming back. Sullivan, Cranston said, was happy about the news but made plain he wanted no part of it.
“Oh, that’s fantastic!” Cranston recalled Sullivan saying before adding, “Oh, no, no, I don’t want to do it. But it’s fantastic.” Cranston also said Sullivan told him, “Oh God, no, I haven’t acted since I was 9 or something,” a line that fits the path he chose after childhood fame. Jane Kaczmarek said producers tried hard to change his mind, offering him “buckets of money” to return, but that Sullivan answered, “No thank you.”
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That left Caleb Ellsworth-Clark to take over the role of Dewey in the revival, which brings back the rest of the Malcolm in the Middle family for Life's Still Unfair. Sullivan is now pursuing a graduate degree at Harvard, a life far removed from sitcom sets and one that has made his absence from the new project less a mystery than a decision. The split between the reunion and the one cast member who stayed away gives the revival its sharpest edge: the boy who defined Dewey is watching from Boston, not the soundstage.
When Life's Still Unfair premieres, the show will answer the question of how the family looks without him. The better answer, already supplied by Sullivan himself, is that he does not want to come back.
