KITTSite have started to roll out their interviews from the San Diego Comic Con, and have started with the human star of the show: Justin Bruening!
Bruening has long professed to be a fan of the Original Series, and got a chance to share what it meant to become Michael Knight: “It was the same feeling that I had when David Hasselhoff said it to me, except I got to express it this time,” he said. “When I read the script of the first episode, I was like, ‘Shut up! Am I really now? That’s awesome!’ And it makes sense. You can’t have Knight Rider without Michael Knight.” He says of the first episode, “It’s kind of like the original [1982] pilot; it’s a nice little origin story.”
One of the major problems fans had with February’s TV movie was the lack of any kind of interactivity with K.I.T.T., a view that Justin agrees with. “In the pilot, there were some really boring moments where we’re just sitting in the car and K.I.T.T.’s driving and nothing’s going on, so now what we’ve added is that my character always drives,” he said. These issues have also been addressed by updating the cockpit with a new Heads-Up Display. “It’s kind of like Minority Report. I can move files; I can view video files. At one point I move the speedometer up there so I can look at it. Everything is interactive. People can come up on a chat line and actually talk to me from headquarters [on there], and I think that’s my favorite feature, because every week we’ll get something new,” he says.
What about the original K.I.T.T.? “I’d love to drive that,” he says, “even if our car could transform into that, would be freakin’ sweet.”
KITTSite also took the opportunity to ask him a question that has fuelled much discussion on Knight Rider forums for years: is he a Bonnie or an April man? “Bonnie was the original, and then she got replaced with April, and then Bonnie came back, and they didn’t explain anything in that,” he explains. “And Sarah — she’s kind of like Bonnie a little bit. [Deanna and I] did a screen test and they had her come out in a mechanic’s outfit, and I was like ‘Now I get it. Now I understand why there’s a girl!'”