The executive producers of Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair say their experience parenting their own LGBTQ+ children influenced their inclusion of a new nonbinary character in the Hulu limited series.

The four-episode revival picks up 20 years after the beloved, Emmy-winning Fox sitcom ended, with Frankie Muniz’s Malcolm reconnecting with his dysfunctional family for his parents’ (Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek) 40th wedding anniversary.

Related

Japanese pop group Xtraordinary Girls changes name after member comes out as nonbinary

Among the new additions to the cast is Vaughan Murrae, who plays Kelly, the child with whom Kaczmarek’s Lois learned she was pregnant in the original series’ 2006 finale. Like Murrae, Kelly is nonbinary.

In an interview with Deadline this week, Life’s Still Unfair executive producer Tracy Katsky explained the significance to her and husband Linwood Boomer, the show’s creator, of LGBTQ+ inclusion in the new series.

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

“It’s a really important thing to us,” Katsky told the outlet. “Three out of four of our kids are queer, and without making it a thing and without making an issue, I think it’s really nice to have a character that [being nonbinary is] just a facet of their personality as opposed to the entire story.”

“Also, I mean, it’s in there because I don’t know what else to write except the stuff that’s really happening around me,” Boomer joked.

According to Deadline, the new series also reveals that Malcolm’s childhood friend Stevie (Craig Lamar Traylor) has come out as gay and started a family of his own in the two decades since the original show ended.

As for Murrae, in a recent interview with entertainment site The Direct, they said they wanted fans of Malcolm in the Middle to “feel like Kelly has been in the family like forever.”

“They’re a character that is, I think quite wise and down-to-earth, but they’re not above the crazy,” Murrae told the outlet. “They’re a character, I think, that believes very strongly in justice and being good and being the favorite, or at least the most well-behaved, child, but they’re also still a sibling in this family of craziness. And even they aren’t above getting involved in some crazy stuff if it means, you know, getting back at their brothers.”

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.