‘Cobra Kai’: Mary Mouser Trained 6 Days a Week to Make Karate ‘Super Grounded’
Cobra Kai has turned Mary Mouser into a Karate action hero. Samantha LaRusso (Mouser) wasn’t practicing Karate in season 1, but by season 2 she was training with her father, Daniel (Ralph Macchio). By season 4 she was fighting in the All-Valley Karate Tournament Female Finals. Mouser said she stepped up her Karate training to deliver last season.
Mouser appeared on stage at Cobra Kai: Live and Badass on May 5. Showbiz Cheat Sheet was there to hear her talk about the work she put in on season 4. Cobra Kai returns for a fifth season Sept. 9 on Netflix.
Karate is part of Mary Mouser’s acting on ‘Cobra Kai’
Mouser began by saying she always took the Karate training seriously. However, season 4 of Cobra Kai gave her even more to do in the All-Valley Karate Tournament.
“I think I’ve always taken it very seriously as coupled to the acting aspect of this job,” Mouser said. “I mean, this is the Karate Kid world. It’s Cobra Kai. It’s as much a part of it as standing on a line and talking for me. More so because I think we get to tell a lot of our story through the Karate that we do. It’s always been incredibly important to me but I definitely feel like this last season I get to dive into it in a different way.”
Mary Mouser started practicing Karate on weekends for ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 4
Mouser had specific goals for Cobra Kai Season 4. She didn’t care if that meant training through the weekends, too.
Rather than this is an added thing we get to do, it became incredibly important to me that it was super grounded and where it was coming from and learning the absolute basics and the way that I could then expand on them. We have an incredible stunts team and Ken Barefield and Don Lee and Selkie Hom, just so many incredible people. I’m doing all the names. Anyway, the point being we have this incredible team who made it, yes, a challenge but made it easy and made it fun and made it something that is important to me in my off season absolutely and the whole world of it. It was a lot of work. I’m not going to lie. I was in there probably average six days a week. We’d come in on weekends.
Mary Mouser, Cobra Kai: Live and Badass, 5/5/22
Krispy Kreme Karate?
Mouser admitted the Cobra Kai team still snuck in treats during their rigorous training.
“We’d get donuts on Sundays and we would eat Krispy Kreme donuts and train Karate which is probably a little counterintuitive but worth it,” Mouser said.
Mouser also focused on her weapons routine with the sais.
“Especially for me, season 4 with Samantha with her sais, her weapons, that was super, super important to me,” Mouser said. “I take it super seriously, never more than two feet away from them. I’m not going to lie, when we came out here and we rehearsed earlier, I stole two off the back wall. It’s incredibly important to me. I think it’s such a fun aspect of what we get to do and I think it adds so much to what we get to say with our characters. I’m really grateful for the opportunity to get to dive into it.”
