‘Cobra Kai’ Star Vanessa Rubio Details Her Cross-Country Trip to Shoot Season 4 (Exclusive)

Vanessa Rubio, who plays Carmen Diaz in the Netflix series Cobra Kai now streaming on Netflix, was promoted to series regular before Season 4 even began shooting. To get ready for the fourth season, which is set to break records, Rubio traveled across the country and journaled her experiences from state to state. PopCulture.com recently caught up with Rubio for an exclusive interview who said the trip “did meet my expectations.”

“I think being in 2021, after 2020 after kind of understanding more fully a sense of self and what one wants like greater depth in terms of what was happening in the world. I was just kind of more,” Rubio told PopCulture, “I’ve been more recommitted to remaining creatively happy and fulfilled and following my hunches and just more what makes a person personally happy. I know I’m not the only one going through that. It was amazing.”

Rubio continued: “And it’s really kind of like what I think in my unconscious intention behind it was to really see what was going on out there in the world and to challenge myself in a way, like if I meet people who I maybe don’t politically agree with. Can we still just make our encounter a good one? And I found that to be true, honestly, as a woman of color, it’s not the same traveling across the country for anybody else. So I just kind of took a chance and allowed experiences to happen. Fortunately, they were all pretty good. And yeah, I just kind of wanted to just get your feet on the ground, meet people, talk. I’m a big believer in small conversations. Like we need to talk to each other. So it was a good experience.”

Rubio’s portrayal of Carmen is one of the big reasons Season 4 is a huge hit for Netflix. The season was filmed from February to April, and it was the first time the cast and crew were together since late 2019 when they finished filming Season 3. Rubio said filming Season 4 had its share of challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“It’s just so bumped up,” Rubio said about Season 4. “And to think that we did that in the midst of these challenges too, with the wearing masks and the constant testing and navigating each person’s level of comfort as well. And then the crew also being fatigued. So to think that we pulled that out of such challenging situations, I was like, wow, this story or whatever is happening has some pretty powerful life force that will not be stopped. So, it was, it was very challenging, but I think we had, fortunately, enough time working with each other in the past to rely on to pull us forward.”