Chapter One Becoming the Kid It was late spring 1983. The Outsiders, my first major film, based on the classic S. E. Hinton novel, was finishing up a fairly successful run at movie theaters, and the notices for my performance as Johnny Cade were pretty solid. Still, to this day, it's one of my favorite roles on film. It was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and featured a cast that rivals any as far as launching big careers, including those of Cruise, Swayze, Lane, Lowe, and Dillon, to name a few. So, I was feeling pretty confident that things might be lining up in a good way for me as well. I was back home in New York on Long Island in the house where I grew up. My beloved New York Islanders were poised to win their fourth consecutive Stanley Cup championship, I was listening to Springsteen's The River album on a loop, and summer was right around the corner. I wondered what would be next. It had been a few years since I was back in my old room full-time. A poster of Scorsese's Raging Bull still lived above my bed. A framed collage of Gene Kelly was a focal point too. I wanted to be as cool and smooth as him when I was a little kid-an early influence from watching MGM movie musicals with my mom. I even took tap-dance lessons for a while in between Little League baseball games and working with my dad on Saturdays. My mom and I would often watch the four-thirty movie on WPIX, channel 11, after I got home from school. I was probably around six or seven years old when my love affair with movies and storytelling was born. My younger brother had taken more organically to the family laundromat and pump-truck businesses at that time. My mind was elsewhere, inside my imagination. In my early teens, between school plays and dance recitals, I would audition for commercials here and there. By the time I graduated high school I had landed two Bubble Yum spots and my first film role, in a movie titled Up the Academy. From there, I wanted to emulate my acting heroes. Brando, Pacino, De Niro, and a few New York Mets bobbleheads still peppered the bookshelves of my room. Springsteen and Billy Joel albums finished off the dZcor over yesteryear's shag carpet, which still covered the hardwood floor. This was where I had grown up. This was where I had daydreamed that I could "make it." After Up the Academy, I lived in Los Angeles for two years coming off my one-season stint on ABC's Eight Is Enough. I was nineteen at that point. I stayed in California for the second year to further my craft, focusing on acting classes and auditions in between teen magazine shoots, before Coppola awarded me a role as one of the "greasers" in his newest film. This was a huge break for me. A big win and step up in Hollywood street cred. And so, it was on that day that I made the decision to move back to New York after filming of The Outsiders was complete. I missed the East Coast energy and was eager to experience The Outsiders' release from home. Plus, New York City was only a train ride away, and this proved to be the right move for what was about to happen. So there I was, sitting in my room on a faux-leather beanbag chair, probably with Martha Quinn in the background introducing a music video on my nineteen-inch Panasonic television, when the phone rang. I excitedly received the information about an upcoming audition for the starring role in a new Columbia Pictures movie. Okay, that's cool. I found out they were making a film based on a newspaper article about a kid who was picked on and how martial arts helped him confront his bullies. Sounds intriguing. It was being directed by the guy who made Rocky. First the Godfather director and now the Rocky director. This is feeling really good now! The character's name was Danny Webber. Hmmm, okay, I guess I could be a Webber. And the title of the script they were sending me was: The-Karate-Kid 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. Gotta be a working title, right? Okay, one thing at a time. They were sending the script my way, and I would read it with an open mind over the weekend in preparation for my audition. Here's what I remember about my first reading of Robert Mark Kamen's now classic screenplay. I recall connecting to the father-and-son elements and heart in the story right off the bat, even though I knew virtually nothing about Japanese culture. I didn't know what a bonsai tree was either, so that part was confusing. I found some of the high school story line characters a bit corny and stereotyped. As far as the fight scenes, it's always very difficult to grasp action sequences on the page, but I did feel they were unique and that the underdog dynamic was just so perfect in the hands of John G. Avildsen. Rocky was such an influential movie in my childhood. Perhaps the title was just a play on what they should have been calling it, The Ka-Rocky Kid. Actually, that is what Avildsen jokingly said the film could arguably be branded. Personally, I could not get past the fact that this major motion picture script would have such a ridiculous title. I mean, can you imagine? If I ever did get this part and the movie hit, I would have to carry this label for the rest of my life!! Three days later, the sound of a train whistle blared as a westbounder entered the Babylon station. It was audition day, and there I was in my white Tom Petty concert shirt and my black Members Only-type jacket, stepping onto a Long Island Rail Road train to New York City. For some reason that I cannot explain today, that was my choice of wardrobe for this character. As the train made its way to Penn Station, I had the usual butterflies as I went over my audition scene. For reference, it was the scene that directly follows Mr. Miyagi's saving Daniel from the skeleton beatdown. The scene where Daniel discovers that Miyagi is a karate master. (The actual footage from that day lives on YouTube. Avildsen uploaded my first reading of the character years after the movie came out-it is intercut with Pat Morita's first-ever reading of Mr. Miyagi. It's really worth a look.) Now, when you first go in to audition for a role, it's most often only with the casting director. What was unique about this scenario was that I was on my way to the director's home, an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where I would meet with the Oscar-winning filmmaker John Avildsen one-on-one. As I rode uptown in my cab from Penn Station to Eighty-something Street, I wondered if, maybe, word of my performance in The Outsiders had gotten me past the first round. That had to be it, right? Not so fast. (Insert record scratch here.) When I arrived, I found a hallway packed with teenagers of all shapes and sizes. I reset my ego, took a deep breath, and made my way toward the apartment door at the end of the hall. I distinctly remember hearing a few actors mocking the title as I navigated the crowded hallway, making fun of it as they snickered. It's interesting; in that moment I felt very validated on one level, but after spending the weekend with the script and preparing, I was now compelled to defend it. Sort of like sticking up for your brother. "Hey, I can make fun of him, but you can't." I was oddly offended by their negative comments about the title. How about that? Looking back, perhaps that was the first sign that I had a personal connection to this role, that it was somehow "destined" for me. Finally, after a significant wait, during which I tried to remain loose and not give in to my pre-audition nerves, I heard my name called. It was my turn. I walked through John's apartment toward a back office, passing framed movie posters for Save the Tiger, The Formula, and Rocky. Something shiny and gold caught my eye on a shelf; I believe I was probably half looking for it. There it was. The Best Director Academy Award. An Oscar, live and in person. Don't stare. Keep moving. Come on, you've worked with Coppola, just stay cool, Ralphie boy. I turned a corner to find John Avildsen, a man of small physical stature, reading glasses on the tip of his nose, sitting with a large JVC-type video camera pointed right at me as I entered. He was shooting my every move and our full conversation. He offered me a seat. I had the script in my lap, and he began to explain the plot of the movie from beginning to end, never taking the camera off me. He was capturing my every reaction. He then focused on the details that led to the audition scene. I tried not to be self-conscious that he was filming me and not the character at this point. Later I would recognize this as the way he documented my behavior. It was all part of the audition process. (Once again, the footage from this exact experience lives on YouTube.) Then it was time to read the scene. I was feeling pretty good with the material, and the dialogue seemed to fit nicely in my mouth. In hindsight, probably another sign that this role was a good match. I just played it as naturally as I could, being honest with my reactions, allowing my East Coast cockiness to bleed through. We only read it once. That was it. No adjustments. No notes. He lowered his reading glasses and said in an impressed, almost surprised tone, "Wow, you're a good actor." Now, that's never a bad thing to hear on the first date. A proud feeling of jittery excitement was building in my chest. Then what really put it over the top for me was when he ended the audition meeting with "I can't guarantee anything for certain, but if I were you, I'd start taking some karate lessons." That got me up and out of the chair with a jolt. A pretty damn good sign, don't you think? I left John's apartment with a spring in my step as I passed by the few remaining audition candidates and title-mockers. Out on Eighty-something Street, I hit the corner, and instead of getting a return taxi, I just decided to run down Fifth Avenue toward Penn Station. I didn't know what to do with myself. I had no cell phone to call anyone. It was 1983, people! I was too pumped with adrenaline to flag down a cab. Those fifty city blocks to Penn were an absolute blur. On the train ride back home to Long Island, I was beginning to fantasize about playing the part. Like Balboa running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Clearly, I was getting way ahead of myself, but hey, it's my imagination and I'll make it up if I want to! They say "the waiting is the hardest part" (my second Tom Petty reference), and that proved to be true for me in the weeks and months ahead. The feedback my agents received from the casting office was excellent, and Avildsen even had me back twice to read with actresses for the role of Daniel's love interest, Ali Mills. (More on that later.) But still no offer. I thought for sure I'd nailed this on day one, judging by John's reaction in person. I had taken his advice and attended a jiujitsu martial arts class near where I lived on Long Island. I made sure my reps got this information to him, letting him know about my dedication and that I was following his lead. Soon after, he called me on the phone himself. Excited to hear directly from him, I braced myself for what I thought might be the official word. Nope! He wanted me to meet the screenwriter, Robert Mark Kamen. Robert had been trained in Okinawan Goju-Ryu karate (Miyagi's karate), and I guess he and John wanted to see what I could do. It had been some time since my first audition, so while I was on the phone, I felt the need to ask him the question that was hanging: "Am I going to get the part?" His answer was clear, noncommittal, and quintessentially Avildsen. "Listen, unless I run into a young Spencer Tracy between here and LA, you're the first choice right now." Okay, well, there is only one Spencer Tracy. Not that I would ever think that I was a better actor than Spencer Tracy, but what are the odds there'd be a "young" one? I took it as it was: undefined optimism. I met Kamen at his apartment in New York City. He spent time with me going over some basic karate stances and circle movements, blocks, and strikes. This was the foundation for what would become wax on and wax off, etc. He sized me up right away. I later learned he described me as a skinny string bean of a kid, "obnoxious" but "sweet," and notably lacking in physical prowess. I guess that made me the perfect karate underdog. Within days we heard from the Columbia Pictures business affairs department. An offer was being made. But not the type of offer I was expecting. The studio was offering a screen test deal, and it included two potential sequels. In other words, a three-picture deal. This was the beginning of that era of "tying up" actors in an early contract in the event a film became a franchise. However, a test deal means you do not have the part unless they pick up your option after a screen test. Bottom line being, more hoops and, more important, more time and chances for the young Spencer Tracy to eventually show up. I was flattered and frustrated all at the same time. I recall attempting to limit the test deal to only the one film at hand, but it was a "take it or leave it" scenario, and I had little leverage at that point in my career. So, for those fans who for years have asked, "Why Karate Kid Part III ?"-you now have the answer. On the flip side, if it weren't for the "second sequel," there may never have been the hit Cobra Kai series. The creators of the show love having the canon from that third film to use in the show's plot lines. You see, with this storied franchise, even the shortcomings wind up giving back. Excerpted from Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me by Ralph Macchio All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
