Times have changed for Ralph Macchio – both for the better and the worse. The actor of The Karate Kid fame has become relevant in pop culture finally, with the release of Cobra Kai, a show which gave him the opportunity to reprise the famous role of Daniel LaRusso. Yet it is hard to overlook the fact that his career could have been something else altogether given the trajectory it was on. Macchio found himself on the wrong end of that line after his initial rise to fame.
The Good and The Bad
In an interview with Tom Lamont of The Guardian, Ralph Macchio opened up about this transformation, giving us an insight into all aspects of his life after his “fall from grace”. He took whatever happened with him sportingly, always looking at the bright side.
The Beer League star said that he had no serious qualms about missing out on the opportunities he did. In his own words, the “dry lean spell” gave him the chance to come close to his family. His relationship with his kids blossomed because he had time to actually invest in their lives.
“Parenting is not seasonal”, says Ralph Macchio.
Ralph Macchio feels he should have taken a stance
The 60-year-old has no qualms about how things turned out to be. Except for one, that is. Tom Lamont posed him a question regarding one aspect of The Karate Kid that always left him perplexed – why was Elisabeth Shue’s Ali Mills discarded from the movie? A conflicted Macchio couldn’t help but repent.
A rookie in the industry at the time, he did not give a lot of thought to his actions. He said,
“I never looked at it from the perspective of Ali’s character or from the perspective of Elisabeth as an actor.”
It would only be years down the line that he would begin to regret his actions.
Ralph Macchio regrets ‘abandoning’ his co-star
Ralph Machhio said, “As an older person, there was a recognition of missteps, of things I should have done differently.” He went on to regret not showing compassion to his former co-star, not even reaching out to her after she was let go from the film. He continued,
“Women in movies were often thought to be disposable. I see that now. Then? I didn’t see it. It was a case of youth being wasted on the young. I was swept up in everything that was happening in my life.”
Wondering what deterred him from putting his stand before the higher-ups behind the move, he pinpointed it to the times. He was a newbie back then, and anticipated that the reply would be, ‘Get outside, Macchio, and start practicing your karate kicks…’
Yet he knows that times have changed now, hoping that another Macchio won’t hold back.
Source: The Guardian
