Karate Kid star Ralph Macchio said he was reluctant to ever play Daniel LaRusso again after Pat Morita’s death.
The actor, whose character was mentored by Morita’s father figure Mr Miyagi in the first three Karate Kid films, has a new book out called Waxing On: The Karate Kid And Me.
It follows the success of Netflix’s Karate Kid spin-off series Cobra Kai – which went ahead without Morita, who died in 2005, but pays a number of homages to him.
He said: “It just seemed, why dance a solo without my partner? It’s like, you know Abbott without Costello… He and I had something special from the moment he started reading Mr Miyagi and I would answer back as Daniel.
“That chemistry was unique and effortless.”
Although Macchio, now 60, struggled to get away from LaRusso – “people think I live in Newark, New Jersey, and my mom drives a green station wagon and I have this Japanese American guy who fixes the faucet when I need him,” he writes – time helped him embrace his association with the character.
It was William Zabka, who played his Karate Kid nemesis Johnny Lawrence and co-stars in Cobra Kai, who felt there was more story to tell.
“He was always like, ‘I wonder if there’s a way to bring these two together,” Macchio said.
Macchio was surprisingly intrigued when Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Scholossberg pitched the idea of Cobra Kai, a continuation of the characters some 30 years later.
After two series on YouTube, it was picked up by Netflix where it was nominated for an Emmy Award for outstanding comedy series.
Series five is now streaming.
assume your viewing positions! Season 5 of Cobra Kai is now streaming. pic.twitter.com/QiqQueNnLV
— Cobra Kai (@CobraKaiSeries) September 9, 2022
Macchio wrote: “They just saw how you could open up this world and take the black and white of Karate Kid and add all these grey shades of these characters where not everyone is good or bad all the time and your allegiance may change as you learn (character’s) back stories, and that’s really a lesson on how to do it and how to do it right.
“And then we have this great young cast as well. They’re just incredible. They’re becoming big stars.”
With his book, Macchio is forthcoming about things he would go back and do differently if he could.
When Elisabeth Shue was written out of the sequel after the first Karate Kid, he says he should have contacted her.
“I was doing a movie called Teachers at the time, and then I had Crossroads and Karate Kid II lined up, and I didn’t stop to think of what that might have felt like for her. So then years later, I look back and I think I would have probably picked up the phone at that point,” he said.
Macchio says he has always had an appreciation for the impact of Karate Kid but writing Waxing On amplified that.
He added: “It was even deeper and more poignant as I was writing.”
