Why the new Malcolm sacrificed Dewey (in zoom)

“Frankly, I would have had a hard time refusing an offer like that… but for him, it was very easy. He refused very quickly.”

The return of Malcolm with Nothing Has Changed – currently watching on Disney+ – brought back the family chaos… but almost without Dewey.

The younger brother of Malcolm and Reese, essential in the original series, is only entitled to a ghostly presence, stuck behind a screen. As if the series had been filmed during Covid…

In an interview with ScreenRant, executive producers Tracy Katsky Boomer and Linwood Boomer reveal the reasons for this pretty gruesome permanent zoom. The explanation is linked to the refusal of Erik Per Sullivan, Dewey’s original interpreter, to return to do these four episodes. And this despite very extensive efforts to adapt to his current life. Indeed, aged 34 today, he studied at Harvard, left Hollywood and put an end to his (short) acting career. There was no question of him diving back in, but the producers believed they could convince him until the end. Result: a writing cobbled together around its possible presence…

“The reason Dewey appears almost exclusively on the computer is that we tried until the very last day to convince Erik to participate in this revival” explains Tracy Katsky Boomer. We said to ourselves that if it was only on a laptop, on this laptop, we could shoot everything remotely. We were like, ‘You don’t even have to come on set or spend time with us. We can make it super easy for you…”

An almost tailor-made solution, which has nevertheless changed nothing.

“He just didn’t want it, and we totally respect that. Frankly, I would have had a hard time refusing an offer like that… but for him, it was very easy. He refused very quickly.”

Linwood Boomer, the creator of Malcolm, who also played the husband of Mary Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie in his youth, says he had a rather candid exchange with the actor:

“I insisted but he replied: ‘And you? Would you like to become an actor again after all these years?’ Of course I said no. He said, ‘OK, then stop bothering me about it!’

End of discussion.

Faced with this definitive refusal, the production had no other choice than to recast the role. It was Caleb Ellsworth-Clark who was chosen, after a simple audition sent from Canada caught the attention of the casting director. And then, pleasant surprise: “We were really nervous. We knew it would be difficult for the fans, because Erik is an icon, Dewey is an icon. And then we saw this audition… and it was immediate: He looks more like Dewey today than Erik actually looks like Dewey! And when we showed the video to the other members of the cast, to Frankie, Chris and Justin, they told us that if we hadn’t told them anything, they might have thought it was Erik!”

Quickly hired, Caleb Ellsworth-Clark integrated without friction: “He immediately found his place. Everyone liked him immediately, he was right at home.” Better yet, according to Linwood Boomer, he captures something essential in the character: “He has this same slightly unreal quality, in the way he speaks and in his gaze. It was perfect. He understands where the jokes are, how to say them – and especially the difference between an average guy who says a line and Dewey who says it.”

But in the end, between a video appearance designed for an absent actor and this new face on screen which replaces him, Malcolm version 2026 gives the impression of a cobbled together character, a Dewey half there, half elsewhere…