Wayne Knight alive and well, and fighting phone fatigue

LOS ANGELES — Wayne Knight, the actor best known for playing "Newman" on Seinfeld, is alive and well, thankfully, despite a recent Internet rumor that he had passed on to rerun heaven. We met at the set of his newest sitcom, TV Land's The Exes, where Knight told us about the pros and cons of reading your online obit.

ONLINE RUMORS

"Being on Twitter, I was able to immediately tell people that it was a big mistake — I'm alive. You get to see what the reaction would be if you were to die." The net effect of the incident is that "it did increase my Twitter following while I was dead. When they found out I was alive, it fell off. But while I was dead people wanted to know what I had to say. … It means now if I'm killed in a bus accident nobody is going to give a damn — they've already been through it; they've already seen it."

TOO MANY CALLS

Knight deals with e-mail overload by using the Sanebox app to cull through messages. But when it comes to phone calls, he's yet to figure out how to winnow them. "Apple decided to link the iPad with the iPhone ... so my phone rings on every device I have! Most of us don't really want to be reached, we just want to reach other people. With my wife, if I don't answer an e-mail or phone call instantly, it's 'Where were you?' In the old days, I was taking a nap; I was taking a shower; I was on the plane. It doesn't work anymore."

TV VIEWING ON IPAD

For watching TV on new devices, Knight turns to his iPad and apps.

He watches live video streams from the BBC and RAI Italy and also has apps for Netflix, CBS, Justin.TV, HBO GO, uStream and the Slingplayer.

"I'm in the TV business, and I'm trying to promote the idea that this is where we are going. We're already down to phablets being your source of TV. People are not going to be sitting at home watching TV; they're going to be wherever they are."

NO GOOGLE GLASS FOR KNIGHT

The computerized eyewear from Google "is one of these things I would enjoy in privacy. Walking along the street, I think people already look at me enough."

(Take a wild guess what they say to Knight when he's strolling.)

His reply to "Hello, Newman"? "I'm congenial. I've learned not to wrestle them to the ground or try to get money from them."

What he hasn't done is Google the term "Hello, Newman," which brings up YouTube clip collections assembled by fans, and even a pop group of the same name.

"Strangely, I'm not as fascinated with myself as you may think!"

Follow Jefferson Graham on Twitter