By Christina Radish

Justin Bruening stars in NBC's Knight Rider

As the original story resumes, the new KITT (Knight Industries Three Thousand) has a supercomputer capable of hacking almost any system, it’s weapons systems efficient and its body,  thanks to its creator’s work and nanotechnology, is capable of actually shifting shape and color. Plus, its artificial intelligence makes it the ideal good cop partner because it’s logical, precise and possessing infinite knowledge. It is the ultimate car, and someone is willing to do anything to obtain it.          

Sarah Graiman (Russo) is a 24-year old Ph.D candidate at Stanford University, following in her genius father Charles’ (Davison) footsteps. But, when men attempt to abduct her, Sarah receives a mysterious call from KITT warning her that he’s a creation of Charles, who also invented the first KITT 25 years ago, and that her father is in serious danger.

Sarah and KITT track down her best friend from childhood, Mike Tracer (Bruening), a 23-year-old ex-Army Ranger, whom Sarah hasn’t seen since he left home at 18. Having served in Iraq, Mike is now jaded and lost, and initially resistant. Eventually, he agrees to help Sarah, and the two set out to discover who’s behind the attempt to procure KITT and find Charles. Along the way, Carrie Rivai (Poitier) plays the tough FBI agent who has a long-standing friendship with Charles and Sarah and, as a result, is brought into the mix to help in the search.

Star Justin Bruening (All My Children) and executive producer David Bartis spoke to MediaBlvd Magazine about the possibility of reviving Knight Rider for a long-running series.    

MediaBlvd Magazine> David, what made you decide that this was the right time to revive Knight Rider? Did the success of Transformers have anything to do with it?

David Bartis> Transformers definitely played a role in it. It heightened everybody’s awareness for the potential of the show. But, to be honest, it wasn’t my idea to bring it back. Ben Silverman at NBC was the first person to say, “Hey, this is a series, that we own, that was a classic iconic series from the 80's.” Ben had a lot of passion for the show. And, I was lucky enough to be on a deal at Universal. They own the show, where they’re partners with NBC. So, I was in the right place, at the right time. I was working on another project with Dave Andron, who wrote the sequel, and we were sitting in my offices when the folks at Universal and NBC called and said, “Is this something you guys would be interested in?” We jumped on it. For both of us, it was something we remembered from the first time it was on TV, so we definitely had a lot of passion for it. And then, the chance to reinvent it and bring it to a new audience was definitely something that was exciting to us.

MediaBlvd> Obviously, this is a continuation of the old Knight Rider TV show. Why did you decide to go that route instead of just completely starting over?

David> The legal answer is that this is a sequel because that’s one of the rights that they had at NBC. So, we knew we were working within the boundaries of making a sequel, not a remake. And, creatively, we knew how strongly people felt about the original characters, as did we. That was the best way to bring David Hasselhoff into it as Michael Knight. One of the really brilliant moves that Dave Andron did, in writing the script, was he creating a new character, named Charles Graiman, who is the link between our show and the original series. He is the guy who actually built the original KITT. He was hired by the original financier, who is a guy named Wilton Knight. He is pivotal in the original series, for having created the Foundation and the whole concept of KITT, the car and the rider. But, there’s never a mention in the original series about who actually physically built the car and developed the technology. He’s the guy who knows the original Knight Rider, Michael Knight. He knows what happened in the original series, and what issues and stories they dealt with. And, his daughter happens to be the girl who grew up with our new driver, Mike Tracer. So, it’s a really organic connection with the original series, yet this new character brings something new to it and provides that link to the original series.

MediaBlvd> Did you have discussions about what the tone of this should be?

David> We had a lot of conversations about the tone. There was a lot of debate and discussion. Personally, I grew up watching a lot of 8:00 and lighter, fun, action-y shows. The shows from my childhood are things like The Dukes of Hazzard, The Rockford Files, Knight Rider and Beretta, where there was this model of the cool guy in a cool car. They were fun, and you would love the fight scenes and the action, and the stories and characters were great. That was something we felt hadn’t really been on TV for a long time. And, we didn’t want to go dark with this. We wanted to go back to the roots of what everybody loved about those kind of classic, lighter one-hours because we didn’t think that was on TV.

MediaBlvd> How do you create that lighter tone that harkens back to shows of 15 or 20 years ago, without being too self-referential and dipping into camp?

David> It’s actually really hard. It’s easier to do the darker, more sinister, evil stuff because that’s an easier tone to nail. It’s a very hard balance to find because the core of the show is the relationship between the guy and his car. And, there’s a lot of comedy in that relationship, too. You have to believe that this guy is really building a relationship with the car. But, at the same time, the story that we’re playing has real jeopardy in it and there’s real danger, and we need to play that as real and believable, too. So, it really is a very hard balance to strike. My partner in our production company is a director named Doug Liman, who did The Bourne Identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I’ve learned a lot from working with Doug because he’s been able to find that balance in a lot of the movies that he’s directed. That was the main focus of our job in post-production because you can really cut a show together many different ways. What we’re trying to do is really make sure we’re playing the comedy and the fun of the action, while making the jeopardy and the danger feel real. It’s tough, but we’re pretty excited about it because we feel like it’s working.

MediaBlvd> Is there anything that you tried to avoid, so as not to make people think of the old show too much?

David> Not really. The old show had a lot of good things going for it. We went back and watched all the episodes and absorbed it. That was a really fun show, and we wanted to make this something fun. We felt like there was enough dark stuff on TV, so we wanted to give people a really fun ride. That was really the goal.

MediaBlvd> As far as the role of Mike goes, were you looking to cast someone like David Hasselhoff?

David> The amazing thing to me was that we saw Justin the first day of casting. You never know what will happen when you see somebody the first day and you think they’re great. You think, “Oh, it’s just because it’s the first time I’m hearing somebody read the words.” It’s just exciting to be starting the whole casting process. Then, seven weeks later, we were still saying, “God, that kid, Justin, was really good.” We couldn’t shake him. It was one of the first times I’ve ever gone through a casting process where, even though he was the second person to walk in the room the first day, I knew he was the guy. He set a bar and it stayed there, and nobody ever came up to it. So, it was a pretty amazing experience for us.

MediaBlvd> Justin, what was your interest in this role, and what was your process of getting it?

Justin Bruening> I went through it just like everyone else. I went to the initial audition and had a few follow-up ones, did the studio test, and all of that. They were gracious enough to hire me. When I first got the appointment sheet for the initial audition, I called my agent right away and said, “I want to do it.” This is something from my childhood and I was a huge fan. Knight Rider was an iconic figure in my childhood. I’d run around my house in a leather jacket and fight indiscriminate crime in my house. I never saw it when it initially aired because I believe it started airing in 1983, so I was about 4. But, I watched it when it was syndicated, and I didn’t know the difference. That was something that really was a huge part of my childhood. And, it’s the cool guy with a cool car. As a little boy, that’s the best show on television. To be able to take over that role was such an amazing honor.

MediaBlvd> David, was it your plan from the beginning to bring David Hasselhoff’s character back in as a cameo?

David> Yes, we always knew that David had to have a role in this project. We spent a lot of time with him, both before and during production, and the thing that surprised me, the first time I met him, was that Knight Rider is something that’s really important to him, and he’s very passionate about it, more so than with almost anything else that he’s ever done, even Baywatch, which he owned and was on the air with for 11 years. And, he had this inherent understanding of what made it work and what the fans responded to. So, it was a tremendous asset to be able to tap into that and get a sense from him of what elements we would carry over to the new version that he was passionate about and that he felt made the show work for the audience. He definitely had a role in helping us conceive of what this would be, as well as being in it. And, I think everybody will be excited to see the way we’ve worked him into the show as Michael Knight.

MediaBlvd> Justin, how did you prepare for this role? Did you work with Hasselhoff and get tips from him?

Justin> Actually, I didn’t get to meet David until a few days before we filmed together, and I picked his brain then. But, we really got to talking on the day of filming. To prepare for it, I just got the opportunity to watch a lot of Knight Rider, which was enjoyable. I sat there with my wife and watched all of the series that we could get our hands on, which was a lot of fun. I just tried to get that relationship with the man and the car down pat because I think that’s the key.       

MediaBlvd> With Hasselhoff being in the movie and on set, did you feel any extra pressure to live up to the way he originally played the role?

Justin> Oh, yeah, wholeheartedly. Being a fan of the original series, I want to keep it as close to the original as I can, while having a new take on it. That’s a fine line. I’m taking over the franchise, and that is both humbling and an honor, at the same time. I just hope I do it justice.

MediaBlvd> Justin, what did you talk to Hasselhoff about?

Justin> When we first filmed together, it was actually the first day of shooting, so I had a lot of questions. I was pretty nervous about continuing this franchise. It’s pretty big shoes to fill.

Obviously, I asked him a lot about what kind of fun he had on the original show, and things like that. He was one of the first people to mention that the key of the show is the relationship between a man and his car, and how they do become best friends. That’s the foundation.

MediaBlvd> Didn’t he also make the leap from daytime television to nighttime television with Knight Rider?

Justin> Yeah, he did. I believe he was on The Young and the Restless.

MediaBlvd> Did you see any parallels there, or was that just a coincidence?

Justin> It just happened that way, but it was hard not to see the parallels. I think we were about the same age, and we were both coming off of a show. We talked about that in length, too. We wanted to try something new. We were done playing our characters for awhile.

MediaBlvd> Didn’t you both also meet your wives on your soaps?

Justin> Oh, that’s true, too. I forgot about that. And, his first wife actually got remarried to a man named Michael Knight, who played my father on All My Children. That’s a creepy coincidence.

David > David was startled by the parallels as well because you guys were the same age, you were both coming off of a soap, and you both met your wives on the soaps that you were on.

MediaBlvd> How did you know that it was time to leave All My Children?

Justin> My contract was up. I was playing the ultimate hero on that show. My character was the good guy that could do no wrong. And, I just wanted to change it up a little bit. It got a little redundant after awhile.           

MediaBlvd> David, if the original Michael Knight is back, is the original KITT dead? And, do you deal with Michael’s feelings about whatever happened to the original KITT?

David> We do reference the original KITT, and you actually see glimpses, here and there, of the original KITT, if you look really carefully. The thought we had was that some of the technology from the original KITT is in the new KITT. But, we just didn’t have time to get into that. In our minds, we believe that the original KITT’s motherboard is buried somewhere in the new KITT, and enhanced.                                           

MediaBlvd> What was behind the decision to go with the Ford Mustang, instead of sticking with the Trans Am?

David> If we stuck with the Trans Am, it would have to be an old one. It’s not really a model they make anymore. And, we had a lot of discussions and debates about how much to reinvent the show and how much to keep the same. It was a real balancing act for us. So, we knew that we wanted to bring the car to a new audience and reinvent it enough, and that meant going with a new model. We also knew it had to be American. It had to be two door, it had to have some muscle to it and it had to be exciting to watch. And, when you line up all the options available that fulfill those requirements, it became an obvious choice for me. When we started digging into all the different models and lines available, Ford showed us this new Shelby, which isn’t even on the market yet, and it blew us away. That car is just pretty cool. Obviously, for the original fans, there’s a lot of loyalty and strong feelings about the car. We understand that, and we felt the same way. But, we also knew that we had to bring the show to a new audience and reinvent it, so we made the choice that we thought was the best choice out there. And, we’re pretty excited about the car, so we’re happy with the way it turned out.

 MediaBlvd> When you were first developing the script, did you approach all the different car manufacturers and tell them that you were looking for an updated version of KITT, or did you really just focus on Ford?

David> There was a whole team of people from NBC and Universal who were involved in the process. It was opened up because NBC has relationships with lots of advertisers, among them all the car companies. So, at different points in time, we were in contact with different companies and had discussions about what model would make sense for the show. So, yeah, we did open it up pretty wide and get into it, and went down that path with a couple of different companies. And, Ford lucked out. They have been an incredible partner because, not only did they have the car that we fell in love with, they’ve also been involved in the marketing of the show. And, they’re really very organically integrated into the whole production process.

MediaBlvd> Can you talk about the technology make-over that KITT has gone through, from a Pontiac Trans Am with smoke bombs to this souped up Shelby GT? What surprises are in store for viewers, as far as the capability of the car?

David> There’s obviously going to be a lot of new tricks that the car can do. We know how passionate people are about what the car can do, and we’ve gone into it really aware that it’s something important to the audience. So, we’ve spent a lot of time building in some pretty cool tricks. Everybody already knows that the car has the ability to morph. It can shape shift a little bit, in ways that enhances its handling and abilities on the road. It also has weapons defense systems that are based on nanotechnology. It’s going to be pretty amazing when people see the way we’ve built the effects there. It’s got a pretty deep arsenal of abilities and tricks. The exciting thing for us, if we’re lucky enough to go to series, is that we have this long list of things that we want to roll out and show people, in each episode. People will be tuning in to see what the new thing is that we’re going to reveal. But, people are going to be pretty satisfied in the pilot, or the two-hour movie. They’ll see that the car has the ability to change colors, shift shapes, defend itself against bullets, repair itself and things like that. There’s some pretty cool effects that are as good as any effects you’re going to see in a $100 million plus movie.

MediaBlvd> What was it like working with the new KITT?

Justin> That was an amazing experience. Actually, it’s the Shelby Cobra 500GTKR. It’s an absolutely amazing piece of machinery, with all the little bells and whistles that we added to it to heighten the experience. It was an absolutely a joy. He gets a little stand-offish, and doesn’t talk all the time.

David> One of the things that we were able to do on the show is create something which we called the Pod car. It allowed us to put Justin and Deanna in an actual car, and run the stunts as live action, and record their performances, rather than putting them in a car on a green screen on a stage, and hope that it looked really good when we matted the backgrounds together. A lot of the performances you see from Justin and Deanna are actually them in the car on the road, with a stunt driver who is sitting in a cage that’s bolted to the top of the car. It’s the real car going the real speed, doing the stunts while they’re doing their performances. You feel the moment that they’re feeling because they’re really in it. It’s not them, faking it on a stage. It’s really happening. As a producer, I thought that brought a level of reality to the performances and the action that was pretty special.

MediaBlvd> Justin, aside from the Pod car, did they let you actually drive the real car around?

Justin> Yeah, but I never got to really open it up or anything. Insurance would have loved that. I would just go from Point A to Point B. Just turning it on, you can hear how much power that thing has.

David> We didn’t let him do the stunts, but he got to drive it.

MediaBlvd> Were most of the effects done with the car practical, or did you guys do a lot of special effects work in post-production?

David> We did both. We did a tremendous amount of practical stunts. We found a way to control a full-size car on location, and put the actors in it. Incidentally, we also built a remote control version of the car, which the actors performed in. But, for things like the morphing and the nanotechnology, and the car’s ability to shield itself, and all that stuff, there are probably 400 plus frames of effects, which are right up there with any big-budget studio movie. It’s a good balance. You get the energy and excitement of feeling the reality of the stunts, with the coolness and technology of some of the new, higher-end special effects that we can do.

MediaBlvd> Is the new KITT a hybrid?

David> The new KITT is incredibly efficient, and, it is a hybrid, in some new ways. You’ll see it incorporate solar energy and technology that, obviously, we could create because it’s a TV show. So, there’s some cool new technology that we’ve applied, and it’s a highly efficient vehicle.

MediaBlvd> Did you have the voice of the car during the takes, or was that all added in later?

David> Sometimes, we would take turns doing the voice. We didn’t have Val Kilmer on the set, but various people would take turns doing the voice to help the actors with the performance. Then, we did the actual voice in post-production.

MediaBlvd> Justin, when you’re working in a scene with the car, do you have to get into a weird mind-set, or is it just another actor to you?

Justin> Initially, it was a little odd. I’ve never had to do that kind of green screen. I would memorize the lines and, once in awhile, we had someone reading the lines for us. But, the moments that we didn’t, we just had to learn to deal with. It was a little weird, at first. In the end, you get used to it and you just imagine that it’s KITT’s voice. It’s not that hard because I did it when I was a kid. So, it took about a day to get used to it. It was very easy after that.

MediaBlvd> David, if the series is picked up, have you considered having William Daniels, who did the voice for the original KITT, do some sort of an audio appearance?

David> Yeah, we’ve actually talked about that. We love Bill Daniels’ voice. And, it’s like seeing Hasselhoff in the show. It’d be really fun to find a way to put him in there somehow. We would love to do it in the series, in the same way that Hasselhoff has a nice role in the movie. But, it is a balancing act. William Daniels has this incredible voice that everybody recognizes. But, at the same time, there’s a whole new portion of the audience that doesn’t know his voice, and we wanted to make it new for them, so we cast somebody new.

MediaBlvd> Justin, what kind of driver are you in real life?

Justin> I’m a very good driver. I got all my points, and everything. Not to the degree that KITT does, but I can definitely hold my own.

MediaBlvd> Did you ever have a car that you loved?

Justin> My uncle had a 1977 Chevy Camaro that I absolutely loved. That was the first muscle car I had ever been around, minus watching them on TV. It was like the A-Team and Knight Rider. My first car was a really badly beat up ‘76 Buick Riviera. If you pulled the top, it would have came off. It was so rusted, it was a piece of crap.

MediaBlvd> Are you tech savvy with your own cars?

Justin> Newer cars are pretty good, as they are. But, when I was growing up, we used to rebuild the classic cars in our garage. And, I remember one thing we did was take the engine from a 1976 Camaro and put it in a 1950 Chevy Pick-Up. That didn’t work out very well.

MediaBlvd> David, how have you changed the theme music?

David> It’s a balancing act. We want to give people some elements that they’re going to be familiar with, but also bring something new to it. You’re going to recognize the theme, but it’s completely re-recorded and re-instrumentalized, which is pretty exciting. But, what you love about it is there still. So, hopefully that’ll go for the whole show.

MediaBlvd> Justin, with your daytime soap opera background, will there be a romantic relationship between Mike and Sarah?

Justin> Sarah is Mike’s potential love interest. She was someone in his life a while ago. They grew up together and that friendship blossomed into a romance, but ended poorly. And, the movie picks up at the specific point when she comes back into his life, so that’s where you get all the nice drama, conflict and all of that fun stuff, that they love on daytime.

MediaBlvd> Have you had the chance to check out All My Children lately?

Justin> My wife (Alexa Havins) has turned it on, once or twice. We just check in because we have a few friends that are still on there.

MediaBlvd> What does your wife think of her re-cast?

Justin> She likes her.

MediaBlvd> How about you?

Justin> I can’t watch it without my wife in the role. It’s very weird. I always think it’s just a completely new character until they say her name.

MediaBlvd> David, are you worried about the fans analyzing how this movie fits in with the original series, and the subsequent reincarnations?

David> We tried to make all the connections to the original series we could, in the time that we had. The Charles Graiman character is going to be so effective because he’s that bridge to the past. And, he talks about having built the original KITT, 25 years ago. He talks about various references to the past. But, there was only so much we can do in the time we had, so we’re expecting to get analyzed. It’s not just the Knight Rider hard core fans. Car fans responding to the Mustang are overwhelming. It’s unbelievable.

MediaBlvd> David Hasselhoff was in the Knight Rider 2000 TV movie. Do you consider that as still having existed, or does it not really matter to this movie?

David> I’ve watched Knight Rider 2000. I even watched Team Knight Rider. So, I don’t think there’s anything inconsistent. Nobody is going to watch this and go, “Wait a minute, that’s contradictory to the mythology in Knight Rider 2000.”

Justin Bruening stars in NBC's Knight Rider

MediaBlvd> Was there any particular scene that created a challenge for you that you had to overcome? And, was there a particular scene that came off differently than you expected, but it turned out even better?

Justin> There was a scene that we did in the audition process. I did it about four billion times because I helped to read with the test girls. And, every time we did it in the audition process, it was a comedic scene, and it was very funny. But, when we got to filming, it took a serious tone, which was surprising. That was very interesting. As far as challenging things, anything with the green screen. There was another challenging scene that turned out surprisingly weird. In the middle of a fight scene, I dislocated my knee. So, that was a shock.

MediaBlvd> How did you go about finishing the scene?

Justin> I didn’t. We took a three-week break. They were gracious enough to give me three weeks to heal. And, I came back and finished that scene and another couple  fight scenes.

A lot of what was left was inside the car, and that was easy to disguise.

David> For me, the car stuff exceeded all of our expectations. It was something that not a lot of people had tried yet, in film or television. So, we were really excited about how the chase scenes and the car stunts came out. That was definitely a pleasant surprise. I loved the scene where Justin and Deanna, who plays Sarah, evolve from something almost pure comedy to pure emotion. It’s a real character moment for both of them. That was another pleasant surprise. Justin blowing his knee out was tough because we did have to hold production for a few weeks, and then come back into it and work around his injury. This was a big production. It’s going to be over 80 minutes of screen time. We shot in 27 days with tons of stunts, tons of location work and a lot of very technical effects work. This was a big challenge overall.

MediaBlvd> Justin, were there any breaks at all where you could just kick back and relax? What did you do to just get away from it all and recoup for the next scene?

Justin> When KITT drives, I would just lay back and let him do it. The overall feeling on the set was very light. It was always a great time, and it was always fun. We always joked around, so I never really needed a break. I was actually eager to continue on to the next scene, until I blew my knee out. Then, I just wanted to lay in the hospital on morphine.

MediaBlvd> David, if this was not set up as a back door pilot, do you think it would have been made, simply as a TV movie, or was it always intended to be a back door pilot?

David> I think the intent was to do a pilot and have all the costs covered because you know you’re going to have distribution for it. This is not a cheap show. The stunts are huge. The chases and the action are really big. I’ve made a lot of pilots and I’ve never had the kind of resources to make a show the way we’ve made this show. And, I don’t think that would have been possible unless we were doing it as a movie and we knew it had an air date. So, for us it was a win/win. We’ve got a template for a series now, and we got the resources to make the kind of show we wanted to make. It’s a pretty big show.

MediaBlvd> Does the movie end with any sort of cliffhanger, or anything leading into what would be a series, or is it close-ended?

David> It’s both. It’s positioned so that you know we’ve got all the players in place to go to series, but we don’t wrap everything up.

MediaBlvd> If this does get picked up as a series, would it be more episodic, or would there be a deep, underlying mythology, where you learn more and more about what the Knight Foundation is, or the background of all these folks, as the series goes on?

David> Our plan is to have a balance. We will probably be a little more close-ended than something like The Sarah Connor Chronicles. That’s more serialized than what we’re going for. We will have missions-of-the-week that Mike is involved with, and the whole team that we’ve put together. We will continue to roll out more mythology and more back story, but our instinct is to go a little more close-ended.

MediaBlvd> Is everyone on board, if this becomes a series?

David> Absolutely. We have such a fantastic cast and team put together on this. We just got lucky. It’s just been a great experience. We had a lot of fun making it, and everybody’s performance is spectacular. It’s always a combination of good planning and good luck, and it happened that way for us. So, we’re hoping we get that shot.