‘You acted like such a jerk’: Ralph Macchio defends his sacred character’s ‘Cobra Kai’ evolution
We spoke with Ralph Macchio ahead of the final episodes of Cobra Kai. While it may be sad to say goodbye to our favorite kids, this isn’t the end of Daniel LaRusso.
Macchio’s Daniel will return in Karate Kid: Legends, set a few years after the end of Cobra Kai. But when talking with Macchio about the final episodes (during a roundtable interview), I was interested in the journey that LaRusso goes on it Cobra Kai. He is no longer just our main hero as we’re seeing more layers get added to some of LaRusso’s biggest foes, mainly that of Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka).
When asked about how Daniel has grown as a character, Macchio told me all about how he had to trust the process and push back when he felt like things weren’t the “most” like his beloved character. But that he understood that sometimes, Daniel would make decisions that felt wrong at the time but would pay off later, something he had to learn to handle on the show since the movies didn’t leave those questions in the air.
“Speaking to the 65 episodes of Cobra Kai, there were ups and downs and surprises for me as an actor,” Macchio said of LaRusso’s evolution. “Where Daniel LaRusso lands at the end of Cobra Kai is I believe the original Daniel La Russo that I helped create back in day one in 1983. It feels honest, truthful, and genuine to the goodness of that character. The ups and downs on the journey of the karate soap opera that Cobra Kai has been with the high highs and low lows and bigger than life moments that has been, at times bumpy, for me to kind of understand. So we always collaborate and discuss that because very often he would be there to create conflict to propel story in order to redeem 10 episodes later, or five episodes later.”
Building a character with flaws
The thing about Daniel LaRusso is that we watched a kid who came from little means take on the big bads. It was a David and Goliath story and while Daniel was always our hero, he had his storyline wrapped up with a nice little bow by the end of each movie. Cobra Kai allowed Daniel to change from season to season and Macchio worked with Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald to make it feel as authentic to who LaRusso is as possible.
“There were times that we would have to find it together because anytime it undercut the integrity of the character is when I would really push hard back saying, ‘Okay, how could we show this side of Daniel LaRusso? This flawed side,’ because it’s important. The character has flaws. You need drama. Without any flaws, there’s no story,” Macchio said. “But it was about having these flaws and these sharper edges, but not for it to feel dishonest to the origin of the character. And so that was the journey throughout where it landed is where it should be getting to. There were times I was frustrated from the protection of the character’s point of view, but it always found itself in a form of redemption going forward.”
Defending Daniel LaRusso
Macchio spoke about making sure that the character felt true to who he is not only for himself but for fans of the show. Characters like Daniel LaRusso have fans dating back decades. I myself grew up in a household where we watched The Karate Kid movies regularly. So the journey of the character is important to who LaRusso is. And Macchio shared that even when people would come up to him and say that Daniel was acting like a “jerk,” it all paid off in the end.
“Sometimes it would hit at a point that we’d have two, three months before the next episode. So on the street people are like, ‘Why did you do that? You acted like such a jerk.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I know, but…’ I’d have to defend. It was like defending LaRusso to the fan base who loved him when they grew up and had to go through all these bumps and sharper edges,” Macchio said. “But at the end, it made him a more complex character. And I think you cheer him on as you did back in 1984, even with all those bumps and bruises.”
“Stay gold,” Macchio
With the release of the final season of Cobra Kai and Legends, a lot of Macchio’s work is back in the conversation online. People often reference My Cousin Vinny, there’s a musical version of The Outsiders on Broadway, and Daniel LaRusso is bigger than ever before. That makes Macchio one of our most talked about people as he’s played roles in all three iconic worlds.
When I asked him how he, as Ralph Macchio, felt about the nostalgia we’re all feeling, he talked about the power his work has for fans. Yes, I did cry when he said “Stay gold” as a way of talking about Johnny Cade in The Outsiders. I am but a simple girl who loves Ponyboy Curtis and Johnny!
“It’s amazing,” Macchio said. “I mentioned before, unique, grateful privilege, all that stuff, yada yada. But it is. I don’t take it for granted at this stage of my life to see The Outsiders on Broadway, to see the teenage kids still come up to me with the book and I write out Stay gold. And they start crying and screaming and I’m like, ‘Wait, I could be your grandfather.’ But it’s cool. It’s cool. I love it, seeing the musical on Broadway and yeah, My Cousin Vinny is quoted all the time, The Karate Kid… It was a certain window of time that I got to experience that 20 years ago. I mean, The Karate Kid has never left the zeitgeist and neither has The Outsiders.”
He went on to talk about the staying power these stories and characters have had. “But at this level to be must see television to be a big summer movie coming out in the end of May, there’s been a light shined on this franchise and I was the lucky kid who got to do the crane kick. And somehow, I’m still here. It’s really wonderful and wonderful to share with my family, my kids who only heard about that chapter and now they’re championing it. So it’s really quite wonderful. And I get asked, how does it feel to carry one character for this long? I hear that from other actors asking me, and I say, when I have a 10-year-old kid that is starry-eyed and just happy that he watches this cool show with his dad or mom, how do you frown upon that and do anything but embrace it? And I’ll do other things as well. But right now it’s a celebration of landing Cobra Kai in this way. And I can’t wait for everyone to see it.”
The final episodes of Cobra Kai land their crane kick on Netflix on February 13.
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