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Ralph MacchioandWilliam Zabkaare looking back on decades of friendship, starting withThe Karate Kidand continuing throughCobra Kai.
Macchio, 60, and Zabka, 56, starred in the very firstKarate Kidfilm, which was released in1984, and reprise their roles as Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, respectively, inCobra Kai.
“For Billy and I, the depth and level of our friendship and our history together has just gone beyond, just like this show has,” Macchio tells PEOPLE of working onCobra Kaiwith Zabka. “You’re taking the nostalgia, you’re taking the source material of whatThe Karate Kiduniverse has sort of created, and then defining it in a whole new way, never losing sight of what it really is.”
Calling his chemistry with Zabka “magic,” Macchio says, “I didn’t even expect to be at that level.”
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“I think we’ve talked about it, that we’ve both come from totally different perspectives, walking in the shoes of these guys, connected to this one entity from two different viewpoints that come together, the wisdom that we’ve gained through it comes to the surface,” he says of how he and Zabka have approached their characters.
Looking back on the decades between theKarate Kidfilms andCobra Kai— which debuted on YouTube Red in 2018 before moving to Netflix for its third season — Macchio says he and Zabka have both grown.
“As actors, as friends, as men, as fathers, and husbands, we have grown,” he tells PEOPLE. “And it’s just so wonderful to think that these two bows have created this great kinship. And on top of that, they can’t get out of their own way, the characters, and that’s what keeps the ball up in the air.”
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Zabka also shares his experience with PEOPLE, saying he and Macchio were friends while filmingThe Karate Kidas “two actors thrown together.”
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“A director picked both of us out [of] the universe and threw us in the same canvas. And then the movie exploded and turned into a classic,” he says. “Over the years, Ralph and I had seen each other, we’d bumped into each other at different festivals and this and that, [a] memorial for [The Karate Kidstar] Pat Morita.”
As their friendship “rekindled,” Zabka notes, he and Macchio both appeared onHow I Met Your Mother, as well as “a few other projects.”
Zabka says he was approached first aboutCobra Kai, explaining, “I think it was safer to get me and then tell Ralph … So it was very nice when it came full circle and both of us took it very seriously and took a hard look at it.”
“We’ve been blessed to revisit these characters in this narrative and the franchise,” he says of working onCobra Kai. “So it’s great, we’re having a great time.”
As for how he and Macchio have changed since filmingThe Karate Kiddecades ago and returning to the same universe withCobra Kai, Zabka tells PEOPLE, “We both have lives sinceThe Karate Kid, we both have families, we [have] both done our careers and all that. We’re now grown up men who really get what’s going on and it’s very exciting. It’s quite an honor.”
Cobra Kaiwill return for a fifth season on Netflix.
source: people.com
