‘Cobra Kai’ Star Martin Kove Opens Up About Final Season & Saying Goodbye to John Kreese
Q&A
[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Cobra Kai Season 6, Part 1]
It all started in 1984 with a kid who wanted to learn karate. Fast-forward to 2024, and it’s now a worldwide phenomenon. The original Karate Kid is about a young boy named Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) who was taught karate by martial arts master Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) to fight off bullies from the brutal Cobra Kai dojo. Since then, there have been movies and remakes, an animated series, and its most notable spinoff, the Netflix television series Cobra Kai. For 40 years now, the legacy of The Karate Kid franchise has been kept alive by its legions of die-hard fans and that momentum doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon with an upcoming 2025 film in the works.
Since its 2018 premiere, Cobra Kai has continued the stories of karate rivals Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) while capturing the magic that made the original films so special. Part 1 of its sixth and final season premiered on Netflix on July 18 and is currently #1 in TV shows today on the streaming service. With the merging of Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang, Daniel and Johnny must work together this season to train their students to win the world’s karate championship, the Sekai Taikai. However, they still have to be on the lookout for the revival of Cobra Kai and Sensei John Kreese (Martin Kove), who has yet to be seen since his prison escape.
For Kove, who has famously portrayed the series’ main antagonist, the end of Cobra Kai marks the end of a four decade-long era. Before arguably becoming best known for his role as John Kreese in The Karate Kid films, Kove was a bona fide star well known for his leading role in CBS‘s Cagney & Lacey, as well as roles in action films like Steele Justice, Death Match, Barbarian, and more. However, by reprising his character in the Cobra Kai series, Kove was introduced to a new generation of Karate Kid fans. As Season 6 hits Netflix in three parts, Kove spoke with TV Insider about John Kreese’s redemption arc, what’s in store for the remainder of the final season, and saying goodbye to Kreese.
Curtis Bonds Baker / Netflix
With Cobra Kai ending, how do you feel about saying goodbye to a character that’s been with you for 40 years?
Martin Kove: William Zabka and I have had a relationship cinematically since 1984. So for 40 years we’ve been emoting together sometimes with lines, sometimes with looks, you know? We cried in each other’s arms. The scene dictated that, but it really was a lot more emotional than just what the characters did in the scene. Because we had never really done that on camera—just be so emotional with each other—that we cry in each other’s arms and embrace each other. That to me, incorporated a lot of the feelings for saying goodbye to John Kreese. And he wasn’t an easy character to play. He was a very edgy fellow. He had a lot of darkness and lack of patience that rubbed off in my real life. It was good in parts to think about it because he caused Johnny Lawrence so many problems in his life.
That must be a real form of closure for the character.
It is. … John Kreese is moral. He is difficult, a bit misunderstood, but he really stands for what’s decent, discipline, and morally acceptable. The focus has got to be on winning and there’s nothing wrong with that. Miyagi-Do defines karate as a defensive sport [rather than] a defensive art. Cobra Kai is really an offensive sport. That’s the difference. So now, if Johnny Lawrence were to go on in life as a real character, he would have a choice of how much to take with him of Cobra Kai’s training. What you see in Episodes 14 and 15 is how much he can take away from that into his life and how much he doesn’t.
Episode 2 shows Kreese’s background in karate and how he learned the infamous “No Mercy” motto from Master Kim in Korea before he started Cobra Kai. However, despite Kreese’s “No Mercy” motto, he says Johnny is his weakness in a hallucination. Why is it that he has a soft spot for Johnny but no one else?
Of course he has a soft spot for Johnny because he looked at Johnny as the champion, not Daniel LaRusso. It was an illegal kick back in ’84. So the champion of that tournament and the U.S. champion should have been a boy named Johnny Lawrence. It was his temper, his dark side, that got the best of them outside the parking lot and he regretted that for years. Breaking the trophy and doing all those terrible things was a result of John Kreese’s lack of patience and frustration that a student who is closest to a son of his as anybody could be lost because of a corrupt spectacle [crane] kick that doesn’t exist in karate. I don’t think John Kreese handled it very well and knew what to do about his disappointment.
Similar to Johnny, Kreese calls Tory Nichols (Peyton List) his champion — his Queen Cobra. Why is his relationship with her so special to him?
She [Peyton List] came in honestly like Tory and took on Miguel Diaz (Xolo Maridueña), the best fighter in the class and she lost as an intro to our class. I wondered why they chose this actress because the stunt girl had to pop in every two minutes for every take. To my surprise, Peyton just flowered. Within weeks, this girl became a champion and she became someone that John Kreese was proud of. Peyton did that as an actress, and of course, Tory does it as well. John Kreese loves female warriors. He loves women.
My character [Victor Isbecki] was always misunderstood on Cagney & Lacey. I’ve always felt that a woman could do anything a man can do. My mother was always more dominant than my father. They were very Depression Era people, quite conservative out of Brooklyn. I don’t think they ever bought a house until they were 65 — a little condo in Florida.
I don’t think Peyton’s character just flew into that. I think that cavern of darkness as well as light [is how] she became a marvelous martial artist in the story. And as an actress, she’s as good as Tory. So, in actuality, I like it as Martin Kove when you see a good female warrior. One of my favorite scenes of Season 5 was when Amanda LaRusso [Courtney Henggeler] comes into my dojo and she slaps me! John Kreese loves it. But [Henggeler] was afraid of hitting another actor. I said, “Just go for it.” I enjoyed the freedom of a woman can do what a man can do. I like that very much, and that’s why John likes Tory.
Curtis Bonds Baker / Netflix
Like Tory, Kreese favors other students such as Kwon Jae-Sung (Brandon H. Lee), the rebellious student. In Episode 3, we see Kreese encourage him to use his anger for purpose to fight Yoon Do-Jin (Daniel J. Kim), the best student. Kreese unlocks Kwon’s potential and he ends up winning the fight, becoming the new best student. What does Kreese see in Kwon?
Well, Kwon clearly was the best martial artist, and he was as an actor. His father was the national champion of Korea. So I think Brandon was exposed to karate at birth, and he clearly was the best martial artist we’ve ever had on the show. He could jump up, spin three times, and come down into a spinning question mark kick. I mean, it was so beyond anybody else. And within the storyline, Kreese knows this. He knows he’s got to somehow harness his talent, and the only way to harness that talent is for him to show, without reservations, how good he is. All the students know how good he is, because he takes them on, and he shows them in that scene.
I watched that scene just last night and it was a good thing and was purposeful. And I’m sitting there with a cigar and I look at him, and he says, “You think I’m afraid?” and I say, “I don’t think you’re afraid. I don’t think you’re afraid of anything.” It was a great scene. It was 12 degrees in Atlanta. We were freezing. We did that scene at night and the only thing that kept me warm was that little fire.
In your own life, how do you unlock your potential to overcome a challenge?
About a month ago, two people came to me to write a book and I never thought I was book-worthy. I mean, Marlon Brando, Anthony Hopkins, Peter O’Toole — they’re all book-worthy. But these people knew everything about me being in the business for 50 years. They knew I came from Brooklyn and wanted to be an actor since the fourth grade. But the most important thing they kept telling me was we’re not celebrating Cobra Kai in his book. We’re not celebrating The Karate Kid. We’re celebrating that you came from nowhere through sheer tenacity in Brooklyn without any connections to the theater world, the movie world, or the TV world.
But my dreams are a little different. My dreams are basically to create a classic Western where there’s a hero. Kids today don’t have any heroes and I want them to have heroes. I grew up with 35 Westerns on primetime TV in the ’60s and I had lots of heroes. My favorite Western is The Wild Bunch. But these writers’ dream was talking about Martin Kove and the tenacity. So to answer your question, I think that I’ve survived this through tenacity. [I realized] if they don’t hire me, it’s their mistake. I’ve always wanted to do vulnerable characters. I don’t get a chance to do them very often and I insisted on that when I signed on to [Cobra Kai]. That’s where the flashbacks came in. That’s why you kind of like John Kreese at the end of Season 5 when he gets framed and goes to jail.
Whenever a young actor comes to me [in autograph shows] and says, “Can you give me a little secret or a little advice?” I tell them, “Watch The Offer on Paramount+.” It’s the story of the making of The Godfather and the story of Al Ruddy, a wonderful producer, who unfortunately passed away a few weeks ago. [It showed] all the obstacles that he had to entertain making a movie. But he overcame them. Not only has this movie become a terrific picture, but it became a top 10 best made movie. I always tell actors to watch the eight episodes because conceptually, that’s what you have to do if you’re an artist to succeed. Be tenacious and certainly have enough talent, but that doesn’t really qualify it. It’s the luck and tenacity.
Speaking of family, Kreese sees Tory as a daughter figure and she actually joins Cobra Kai in the Sekai Taikai at the very end of Part 1. What was your reaction to reading that plot twist in the script for the first time?
It was a major surprise. Everybody leaves and waits for something that comes out of a movie. Whenever Hollywood tries to justify it by a TV series, or miniseries, it usually fails. It’s never as good as the initial feature film that made all the noise. But [Cobra Kai] was written so well. Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald, and Hayden Schlossberg wrote, developed, and paid off so many characters in Season 6. When I went to them at the beginning of Season 2, I met with mercenaries, Army Rangers, and all these characters. I took lots of notes and wanted flashbacks. I wanted to show why John Kreese was the way he was. I met with [Hurwitz, Heald, and Schlossberg] for lunch. Not only did I not get a chance to read my notes, but they had conceived all of this for the character a year and a half before. So they use their perception for all these characters, seeing the show through the eyes of Johnny Lawrence, not Daniel LaRusso, “The Karate Kid.” There were so many surprises in Season 6. The last ones are coming out of Episodes 14 and 15.
Curtis Bonds Baker / Netflix
What can you tease about Part 2 and Part 3? What can fans expect to see from Kreese and from Cobra Kai overall in these next two parts?
Massive redemption, theatrical surprises, and surprises that equal the redemption of John Kreese. John Kreese becomes a hero. The relationships [between] Tory, Samantha La Russo [Mary Mouser], Miguel, Hawk [Jacob Bertrand], and Robby Keene [Tanner Buchanan] — there are all different surprises that pay off these characters and it’s all new. It’s all newly written personal dynamics that you wouldn’t expect these characters to go on to and that’s how [Hurwitz, Heald, and Schlossberg] wrote it. That’s why we did 15 episodes, so they could wrap up every character and not allow any of the fans any kind of disappointment because all the fans have different favorites. It’s all in the writing of what they did for the fans from the first season all the way through the end. They’re really fan-conscious writers.
Cobra Kai, Season 6 Part 1, Streaming Now, Netflix
Cobra Kai, Season 6 Part 2 Premiere, Friday, November 15, Netflix
Cobra Kai, Season 6 Part 3 Premiere, 2025, Netflix
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