Summary. Ralph Macchio was 22 when he played the teenage underdog Daniel LaRusso in The Karate Kid, even though the character was 17. Macchio aged two years between The Karate Kid Part II and The Karate Kid Part III, with the actor being 24 during filming.
How old was Elisabeth Shue when she filmed Karate Kid?
Elizabeth Shue, beloved star and teen heartthrob, stole millions of kids adoration as the love interest to Daniel in the Karate Kid. Elizabeth Shue was born on October 6, 1963 making her 20 years old at the time of filming!
In 1984, 17-year-old Daniel LaRusso and his mother Lucille move from Newark, New Jersey, to Reseda, Los Angeles, California. Their apartment's handyman is an eccentric but kind and humble Okinawan immigrant named Mr. Miyagi.
William Zabka reprises his role as Johnny Lawrence, the antagonist in the original Karate Kid trilogy. Johnny was 16 years old in the first Karate Kid, born to Laura Lawrence and an absent father whose identity has never been revealed. Laura marries Sid Weinberg when Johnny is still very young.
Miyagi was 86 years old, when he died in 2011. In 1984, the year the first Karate Kid was filmed, his character would have been around 59 years old. The actor, Pat Morita, who played Mr. Miyagi was 52 years old in 1984.
Ralph Macchio on Turning 60, Cobra Kai & Being Pitched Terrible Karate Kid Reboot Ideas
Could Pat Morita speak Japanese?
Often times he leaned into it, playing with different Asian accents, like how his Chinese accent for Arnold was supposed to be for a character originally meant to be Japanese. Many of his characters didn't have accents (Morita himself didn't have one and couldn't speak Japanese) but many did.
Not before being cast as Mr. Miyagi, no. He did train with a reputable black belt for the films, a Tang Soo Do black belt/stuntman named Pat Johnson who befriended Chuck Norris at a tournament and would go on to study karate directly under Chuck Norris and teach at several of his gyms.
In the same movie, his co-star, Thomas Ian Griffith, was playing Terry Silver, a character much older than his real age at that time of 28. So, although Terry Silver may appear to be many years Daniel LaRusso's senior in the world of Karate Kid and Cobra Kai, in reality, Macchio is older than Griffith.
Cobra Kai star Xolo Maridueña is currently 4 years older than his character Miguel Diaz. The show's main younger character was introduced in season 1 as a 15-year-old who just moved to the Valley. This originally worked for Cobra Kai as filming began on season 1 when Xolo Maridueña was 16 years old.
In truth, filming for the sequel started in September 1985, and The Karate Kid Part II hit theaters in June 1986. So, though only a few months had passed for Daniel in-plot, Macchio had aged two years since he last played the character. The actor would have celebrated his 24th birthday while filming was still ongoing.
Thomas Howell, Tom Cruise, Eric Stoltz and D. B. Sweeney. Ralph Macchio was ultimately cast on the strength of his performance as Johnny Cade in The Outsiders (1983). Macchio has stated that his performance as Johnny influenced the development of Daniel LaRusso in The Karate Kid.
Personal life. Macchio was introduced to his future wife, Phyllis Fierro, by his grandmother when he was 15. They got married on April 5, 1987, and have two children. Fierro is a nurse practitioner.
Apart from four jiu-jitsu lessons when I was 10, I had no martial arts experience. Before filming, I was trained in Okinawan Gōjū-ryū karate by Pat E Johnson, who coordinated the fight scenes and played the head referee in the tournament at the end of the film.
Swank was just 18 when she beat out 500 other hopefuls to land the starring role of Julie in The Next Karate Kid. However, at the time, she thought she was playing an altogether different part in the movie.
My brother (Andrew Shue of TV's ``Melrose Place'') had it before me, but I wasn't prepared. I was in movies, but the press didn't come at me the way they do now. The silliest rumor they put out was that I had an affair with Tom Cruise while filming `Cocktail,' but I laughed at that. I'm not laughing as much now.
“As an older person, there was a recognition of missteps, of things I should have done differently.” He also said he regrets not calling Shue at the time, to see how she felt, or going to the producers to object to her removal.
At the start of Cobra Kai, she is approximately 15 or 16 years old. The only daughter in the LaRusso family, Samantha LaRusso began learning Miyagi-Do Karate at a very young age and is now very experienced at the age of 17.
Miguel has a severe spinal injury and he was in a coma for two weeks - but he finally awoke thanks to Johnny. Johnny and Miguel are the heart of Cobra Kai and they're essentially an even more unlikely modern-day spin on the relationship between Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Mr.
And since Daniel has his senior prom in Karate Kid 2 and never goes to school again it's safe to assume he was a senior which is typically the year you turn 18.
Question: What was your relationship with Pat Morita like? Ralph Macchio: On screen, it was magic. I call it soulful magic. He and I were close, friendly.
Were Pat Morita and Ralph Macchio friends in real life?
Though the duo have only spoken highly of each other in the press, their friendship didn't kindle until years later — 2005, to be exact — when they reunited for the first time ever at Pat Morita (a.k.a. Mr. Miyagi)'s, funeral. “He caught my eye,” Ralph said in his memoir about the meeting.
How did Ralph Macchio react to Pat Morita's death?
Miyagi once said, “No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher. Teacher say, student do.” Well, it seems both Pat Morita and Ralph Macchio were good teachers and students. Macchio is now paying respect to the late Morita, penning an essay in tribute to his late sensei.
