The Karate Kid is having a big resurgence thanks to the Netflix‘s Cobra Kai, which brings back William Zabka and Ralph Macchio as Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso.
While promoting the series, Ralph opened up about some little known facts behind the original movie and revealed that Pat Morita, who played Mr. Miyagi, the karate master who teaches Daniel the ways of the martial arts discipline, wasn’t the first choice to play the character.
According to Ralph, Pat, who was best known for playing Arnold on Happy Days, wasn’t even truly considered for the role.
“Who was going to play Mr. Miyagi? They were talking about Toshiro Mifune, the great Japanese actor who didn’t speak any English, so that would have been a challenge. But all the sudden Arnold from Happy Days shows up on video tape from Pat Morita and the studio did not want him. The producer did not want him,” he says.
He added, “I was like, ‘Arnold, from Happy Days?’ But [director] John Avildsen was like, ‘I’ve read him and I’ve read you and I’m putting you guys in a room together.”
“Pat and I got in a room together, just grabbed the pages, started reading. It was effortless. That magic that happened on the screen happened the first day we picked up the pages,” Ralph says.
He went on, saying that Pat “had Miyagi in his skin, in his mind, in his consciousness. I for whatever the reason, had the yin to the yang, literally the balance, that was the beginning of the cinema magic that resonates to this day.”
Pat passed away in 2005.
The first two seasons of Cobra Kai are streaming on Netflix now.
