Ralph Macchio is ready to send the secrets of “The Karate Kid” to the mat once and for all.
Nearly four decades after wowing audiences as New Jersey underdog Daniel LaRusso in the 1984 classic, Macchio is pulling back the curtain on the iconic movie franchise with a new 256-page memoir, “Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me.”
The franchise, which included sequels in 1986 and 1989, is now enjoying an extended second act with the series “Cobra Kai” on Netflix, but Macchio wasn’t always on board with the original title about a teen who uses martial arts to confront his bullies.
“And the title of the script they were sending me was: ‘The Karate Kid,’” writes Macchio, now 60. “What? Seriously? Was this a cartoon? An after-school special? All I kept thinking was, What a silly, lame-ass title. It must be a placeholder.”
It wasn’t — but his character’s original name in the movie, Danny Webber, was later changed, making the “ethically Italian” Macchio more comfortable and send “everything into high gear.” Here are five other secrets Macchio reveals in his memoir:
Charlie Sheen could have been the Karate Kid
Macchio bumped into actor Charlie Sheen as he left a casting session for the first film — and later learned the “Red Dawn” star had been a “candidate” for the role. Robert Downey Jr. and C. Thomas Howell were also considered for the part, while Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood made an unsuccessful push for his son Kyle, Macchio writes.
Pat Morita nearly wasn’t Mr. Miyagi
No one involved in the movie — including Macchio — initially wanted actor Noriyuki “Pat” Morita, to portray Daniel’s martial-arts mentor, Mr. Miyagi.
“All I could think of was the character Arnold from ‘Happy Days,’” Macchio writes of Morita’s restuarant-owner role on the TV hit. “He was the Japanese cook … who would do shticky gags and deliver sidekick-style jokes with a ‘Bah- hah- ha!’ tag each and every
time. I said to myself, ‘This is going to be a disaster.’”
Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune was eyed as the top choice, but he spoke very little English and auditioned for the part as an “intense and dramatic” sensei.
Morita won everyone over with his audition, though. “In the blink of an eye, I witnessed an instant transformation. I heard for the first time the one and only Miyagi voice. The cadence of his speech, the resonance — it was all there. The perfect-English-speaking
guy vanished,” Macchio writes. “The character of Arnold was not anywhere to be
found or even in the furthest reaches of my imagination … [Morita] was Mr. Miyagi.”
Morita was later nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the role. He died in 2005.
Miyagi’s backstory was almost erased
One of the most emotional plot points of the movie — the “Miyagi drunk scene” — almost didn’t make the cut. During it, an inebriated Miyagi reveals how he lost his wife and unborn child at a Japanese internment camp, as there were birth complications and “no doctor.”
It was a personal scene for Morita, who had himself spent a few years in two such camps as a boy.
“They felt it took too long,” Macchio writes of movie execs. “The studio’s main concern was that with the movie running over two hours, they would lose a daily screening time, and essentially, money in the process.”
But, as director John Avildsen soon told Macchio: “They all shut up once we screened it for them with an audience.”
How they really filmed that chopstick scene
Surprise, surprise: Everything is not as it seems on the big screen.
The scene where Daniel catches a housefly using chopsticks took “lots of planning” and days to finish — and it’s still all movie magic.
“In the end, I believe we wound up using a combination of the live fly on the fishing line and the tiniest plastic fly glued to the chopsticks,” Macchio writes.
Crane kicks aren’t legitimate in competition
Daniel defeats his movie nemesis, Johnny Lawrence (played by William Zabka), with a crane kick he learned from watching Miyagi practice on the beach. But the move wouldn’t have been acceptable in real-life karate competitions, Macchio writes.
“Now … was the kick illegal? When we made the film, that was never a discussion,” he writes. “Miyagi also stole a black belt for Daniel to wear so he could compete. Was that legal? I think not. But we did need a climax, people. It’s a movie!”