Ralph Macchio is setting the record straight when it comes to Cobra Kai cameos. The 60-year-old actor recently appeared on Jake’s Takes to talk about Season 4 of Cobra Kai, which will be released on New Year’s Eve. He talked about the rumors of Jackie Chan and Hilary Swank making cameo appearances in the Netflix series, which likely won’t happen.
“Anyone who knew Mr. Miyagi and interacted with Mr. Miyago is cannon for our show, for the Cobra Kai Show,” Macchio said during the interview, per Slash Film. That means that Chan won’t likely be in the show since he played a version of Mr. Miyagi in the 2010 remake film The Karate Kid. However, there’s a chance Swank could appear in the series since she has ties to Mr. Miyagi, who was played by the late Pat Morita.
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“To the flip side of that, someone like Julie Pierce, who is Hilary Swank’s role, did know Miyagi,” he said. “So there’s always a chance for maybe that.” Swank played Pierce installment of The Karate Kid franchise The Next Karate Kid in 1994. Julie was dealing with anger issues following her parents’ death in a car accident. Mr. Miyagi helped Julie channel that and ager into defending herself against very dangerous men.
But could Swank really make an appearance in Cobra Kai in the foreseeable future? In an interview with Cinema Blend last year, the Cobra Kai creators revealed that they “have spoken” about Julie Pierce coming to the show. “In our writers’ room we speak about literally every character that has appeared in the Miyagi-verse, so it’s obvious that we’ve spoken about Julie Pierce,” Cobra Kai co-creator Jon Hurwitz said. “As to whether or not she’ll return to the series, that’s something you’ll just have to wait to find out.”
Hurwitz went on to describe Swank’s work in The Next Karate Kid. “We believe that the events of that movie happened…In terms of that movie, it has its pluses and minuses,” he said. “One of the things that’s really special about it is it’s very early work for Hilary Swank and she’s gone on to be one of the great actors in Hollywood. Her performance is great in that movie and her chemistry with Pat Morita is fantastic.”
