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Cobra Kai Season 5 is full of surprises, including many characters from the Karate Kid films. One surprise, however, is a rare appearance by young Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka). Zabka reprises his role from The Karate Kid, but if you’re wondering how they made him look like he did in 1984 again, the creators revealed how. 

[Warning: This article contains spoilers for Cobra Kai Season 5, episode 6, “Ouroboros.”]

'Cobra Kai' Season 5: Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) sleeps in bed next to Carmen (Vanessa Rubio)
L – R Vanessa Rubio and William Zabka | Netflix

Showbiz Cheat Sheet spoke with Cobra Kai creators Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald. They shared how they created the image of young Johnny Lawrence for the episode. Cobra Kai Season 5 is now on Netflix. 

John Kreese sees young Johnny Lawrence again in ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 5

Cobra Kai has often used outtake footage from the Karate Kid movies in order to show events from different angles. Episode 6 needed young Johnny to speak brand new dialogue, though, so old footage wouldn’t be enough. John Kreese (Martin Kove) speaks with the prison therapist and encounters people from his past, including Johnny as a teenager. 

“It was a deep fake,” Hurwitz said.

Deep fake technology has been used to put celebrities like Tom Holland and Robert Downey, Jr. into scenes from Back to the Future. It’s not quite as detailed as the de-aging work Marvel uses in movies, but it was enough for Cobra Kai Season 5.. 

“With our little Cobra Kai budget you try to bring in young Johnny,” Schlossberg said.

A combination of techniques brought young Johnny Lawrence back

It’s not quite as simple as just laying Karate Kid footage over a new scene. A Netflix streaming series like Cobra Kai could go to a bit more trouble, even on a budget.

“We have to do everything you do to make one of those, from having VFX supervisors on set to the camera move to we hired a performer to body double young Billy in that moment with a face that approximates some of the skeletal qualities,” Heald said. “And then we let the geniuses in the VFX world work their magic. We continue to hone and give notes. It was very important to us in that moment that young Johnny be one of the ghosts haunting Kreese.”

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‘Cobra Kai’ Season 5 Shows Johnny Lawrence’s Vulnerable Side, William Zabka Says

This opens up new possibilities for Cobra Kai. If they can convincingly show young characters as flashbacks of sorts, they could also create brand new scenes set within the timelines of the movies. We trust that Cobra Kai won’t abuse this technology. Too much of that would be a gimmick, but if there’s something too good to pass up, the technology exists to make it happen. 

Young Kreese makes another appearance in ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 5

This was a much easier special effect. When Kreese has a fight with other prison inmates, he becomes Barrett Carnahan, who played him in season 3 flashbacks. Kove told Showbiz Cheat Sheet in a separate interview that he supported the inclusion of Carnahan in that scene. 

“I could’ve done it myself but it was a choice that was made as if this is the kind of emotion that he entertained as a kid and was John Kreese and was very familiar with it and it brought back his survival mode of what it was like to be in Vietnam,” Kove said. “His youthfulness I think is all emotional. I think if you put my face or Barrett’s face in there it doesn’t matter. It’s all about survival and it was icing on the cake. It’s all about survival that he experienced as a youngster and you see the youth is implied by seeing Barrett but the concept of survival is something he’s lived with forever.”

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