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Back in 1983, actors auditioning for the title role in The Karate Kid weren’t thinking about it leading to the streaming series Cobra Kai decades later. They just needed a movie role. Ralph Macchio won the role of Daniel LaRusso, whom he played in three movies and the TV series. But he remembers which of his contemporaries were also up for the role.

'Cobra Kai': Ralph Macchio stands with 'Karate Kid' co-stars William Zabka and Yuji Okumoto
L to R: Yuji Okumoto, William Zabka, and Ralph Macchio | Curtis Bonds Baker/Netflix

Macchio was a guest on the WTF With Marc Maron podcast on Oct. 17 to discuss his memoir, Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me. He also gave EW an interview published Oct. 18. Looking back on the audition that started it all, Macchio named one big star he beat for the role, but many other iconic ‘80s movies he did not get. 

Jon Cryer could’ve been ‘The Karate Kid’ 

Jon Cryer was another ‘80s movie star who went on to great success on television with Two and a Half Men and Supergirl. At the time of The Karate Kid, Cryer hadn’t even done Pretty In Pink yet. His first movie, No Small Affair, would come out in 1984, the same year as The Karate Kid.

“In the hallways, I think I recognize years later, it was Jon Cryer, a couple other people,” Macchio said on WTF. “There were a bunch of other dudes. It was at [director] John Avildsen’s apartment. It was his apartment, upper east side. I do explicitly go [into] what that day was like for me.”

After ‘The Karate Kid,’ Ralph Macchio tried out for other big ‘80s movies

The Karate Kid was the role Macchio was meant for, and it continues to pay off with Cobra Kai. That didn’t stop Macchio from trying to land other big ‘80s movies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Back to the Future. Now, Macchio takes it in stride. Those might have conflicted with The Karate Kid Part II anyway. 

“Is there any other actor to play Ferris Bueller?” Macchio told EW. “I say there are plenty of actors to play Ferris Bueller, but Ferris Bueller is that face, it’s Matthew [Broderick]‘s face. And Marty McFly is the other example. So, I touch on the ’80s of it all. Maybe that’s the way I deal with the fact that I didn’t get [those parts], is by saying, ‘Well, I just wasn’t the right guy.’”

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Macchio isn’t the only hopeful Ferris Bueller or Marty McFly. Back to the Future is legendary for filming five weeks with Eric Stoltz before replacing him with Michael J. Fox. The latest DVD release also showed auditions by Ben Stiller and others. John Hughes wrote Ferris Bueller for his regular star Anthony Michael Hall, but Hall was so in demand he was not available. Macchio would’ve been one of the newcomers like Broderick who ended up replacing Hall. 

‘Waxing On’ is not a tell-all memoir

Despite the name-dropping, Macchio promised Waxing On is not his gossipy tell-all book. In fact, the biggest target of his stories is himself. 

“I wanted to be honest and humble, and a little self-deprecating, because that’s one of my favorite hobbies,” Macchio told EW. “The only person who gets thrown under the bus in this ‘tell-all memoir’ is me. It is not a tell-all; it’s the anti-E! True Hollywood Story.”

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