‘Cobra Kai’: Martin Kove On The Return Of John Kreese, And Why He’s Not Necessarily A Bad Guy

Martin Kove is one of those “That Guy” character actors who have an IMDb roster as long as his arm, but, aside from a regular role on Cagney & Lacey, most people know him as ruthless Cobra Kai sensei John Kreese in the three Karate Kid movies, terrorizing both Johnny Lawrence (Billy Zabka) and Danny LaRussa (Ralph Macchio) with his “No Mercy” ethic.

Now Kove is back as Kreese in season 2 of YouTube Premium’s hit series Cobra Kai, having come back into Johnny’s life in the last scene of Season 1, after Johnny’s protege Miguel Diaz (Xolo Maridueña) won the All-Valley Karate Tournament over LaRussa’s student (and Johnny’s son) Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan). Kove sat down with Decider to talk about how the show’s creators — Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg — had a whole backstory for Kreese that wasn’t there before, and what it’s like playing the physical role again at 72.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2 AHEAD!

DECIDER: We saw you at the very end of Season 1. When you were approached by the producers to come back and play Kreese again, what did they tell you about him that had changed since the movies in the ’80s and what did they want the character to be?

MARTIN KOVE: Well, we sat down, and I think it was Dan’s Tana’s restaurant, and they wanted me to come back in Episode 10. I said, “Well, really can I come back in Episode 6, Episode 7? Come back earlier?” They said, ‘No, we want you to set up Season 2.’ They knew so much about our characters and they were so persuasive and they were big fans, so I went along with it. They went through what did they want, what they set up; we talked about everything. We talked about the background of [Kreese’s tour in] Vietnam, of why John Kreese is the way he is, why is it a merciless attitude in the [Cobra Kai] dojo versus Miyagi-do, where you get the point, you win the point, and you’re finished with your opponent. When, in Cobra Kai you get the point, and you make sure that your opponent stays down.

This all came from John Kreese’s experience in Vietnam, where they would welcome a small boy into the platoon, the boy would come in looking for food or something, and then he’d press a button, boom. The entire platoon would blow up. Five of John Kreese’s friends would die. It was a concept of no mercy that was brought forward from the inception of this character.

I met with them a little later on discussing Season 2 with my notes with what I wanted to do and how Cobra Kai got its name. I met with Army Rangers and all, because he was an Army Ranger. To be purely honest, they were miles ahead of me with their plans, what they wanted to do, how they wanted to address why John Kreese was a bully and go back in history and go back to Vietnam. They had planned all this out unbeknownst to me. It was amazing, just amazing that you meet people who are not only big fans, but they’re smarter than you are about your own character.

They saw you in all three of the movies and they had just created that whole backstory; is that how it went?

Yeah. I created my backstory myself, and then they create a similar backstory unbeknownst to me. When we met again to talk, they said they were going to develop the character and give him a lot more texture and, really, we find out what made John Kreese the way he is. That was the structural relationship at that first meeting.

I went along with it because they were so persuasive and they knew so much about all three movies, all three moments. My relationship with Billy as an adopted son. They even had that in their head a year-and-a-half ago. They had thought out everything. So I said to myself, “Wow, these cats, they’ve got it.” So I signed on to do this.

Throughout this whole season, they have written the character with an enormous amount of texture, they’ve written him at times very vulnerable. I love playing that, because it’s easy to play John Kreese stoic. They would let me do certain things during the 10 episodes with holding my collar, putting my hand on my waist; specific moves that I did in the movie, they had placed in the script throughout this whole year, and I was not allowed to do certain things, because for him, that movement defined a portion of the script that should only be in a certain section of the episode. It was that specific.

Did they want Kreese to be more human? They’ve made everybody in the show more multifaceted than they might have been in the movies.

Well, I believe so because honestly, everybody was gray in this show. There wasn’t any white hats. The days of white hats and black hats like in the old westerns, that doesn’t happen. They’ve humanized everybody to the point where everybody’s flawed. Everybody has decent attitudes towards life, but they’re in a gray area like we all are.

Kreese did try to maintain the love for [Johnny]. But the bottom line is, the integrity of Cobra Kai suffered, and that can’t happen. Can’t happen. That’s where the difference between John Kreese being who he is and being flawed. But do we call it flawed because he stands up and says that kids don’t deserve a trophy for participating? And the kids of today are just babied and coddled? I don’t know, honestly. I don’t really think that’s flawed. I think that’s real. I think that’s what we need to deal with in society today. They’re playing with this character in all facets of life, from vulnerability, to at times even more, basically tougher.

What aspect of it surprised you the most pleasantly about the deepening of Kreese’s character?

His love for Johnny Lawrence. The true love for Johnny Lawrence 40 years later. It was his son, it was his best student. He never had that with anyone else. For 40 years I think Johnny’s been living with it; so has Kreese. He might come in, in the opening episode somewhat [with some] bravado. We can’t get too specific, but down the line you know what happens to him, where he’s vulnerable. He’s vulnerable and I love that.

I love that because I’ve done enough bad guys. In Cagney & Lacey, I was part bad guy, part wise ass and all that, and God knows how many other things. But it’s few and far between where they’re well-written. Robert Cayman wrote a great hard ass, and these three writers in Jon, Hayden and Josh, they write vulnerability and texture better than anybody that I’ve experienced. I just think that the answer to the question is, his love for [Johnny] and the punishment he’s had for 30 years of not having his life work out, and now an opportunity again.

Between you and I [Kreese’s] not manipulating. [Kreese] can walk out of a fire carrying two babies that he just rescued; all of a sudden the audience will go, “Oh, what did he got up his sleeve now?” It’s, you’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t. But it’s interesting. As an actor it’s interesting to play that. To play vulnerability that they write, to me is sensational.

How was it acting opposite Billy, I would guess for the first time since the movies? Did you guys just pick up where you left off? How was it different now that Billy is older and had more experience?

Well, I’ve known Billy for a while. We’ve maintained a relationship because we live near each other. Ralph lives on the east coast. Billy is extremely creative. Billy just is a very funny boy; he’s done some wonderful stuff that, God knows, should be on HBO or Showtime, it’s just so funny. Skits that he’s done and characters that he’s developed. He’s very funny. We have a lot of fun when we are together. So it wasn’t two people who haven’t seen each other in a long time, but these characters haven’t seen each other in a long time.

YouTube did a good job of telling people like us to keep it quiet and don’t say anything. So when people saw you at the end of Episode 10 last year, it was a big, ‘Oh, now we’re moving into the next chapter of this with the third part of this trio,’ obviously with Pat Morita gone.

You have to remember that, you bump into people, and they heard about the show coming on the air. I will have to make up. [They’d ask] “Are you in the show?” I would have to say, “No Kreese is dead. He’s been dead.” “He’s in prison,” “He’s working for the KGB.” I would make up all this stuff and nobody would believe it, but there was never any proof that I was in the show. Finally, people hear all these stories and all of a sudden, there he is again. It wasn’t fun to keep my mouth shut. It was exhausting and frustrating, but it paid off. It paid off.

Physically, 30 some odd years later, how different is the role for you?

Well, physically I’m working out. [I have] a wonderful trainer. He trains lots of celebrities. He’s brilliant, and I don’t miss a session. Now, this year, because we’re all hoping for a Season 3, we’ll start working out in the dojo again early. Earlier than last year. But that opening fight scene, we planned on that. It was terrific. I did all of it myself. I think I had the stuntman pop in there once. It was great. You just have to work out and prepare yourself; because I’m in decent shape but you go in there and you’re doing three months, 10 episodes, working at a feverish pace, and you physically have to be in shape. You just do.

It’s not like just walking up and doing a coffee commercial. It’s very demanding. You have to go with it because these writers, they write the show, they direct they show, they help edit the show; they’re doing the rewrites at night after they direct you in the day. We’re doing Episode 8 and all of a sudden we have to do pickups for Episode 4, which throws you right into … chronologically and emotionally you’re in the toilet.

But they work harder than we do. They are relentless and ruthless, but the material is so good. You figure, if they can do it, you can do it. Billy and I go to work in the morning; we drive in the same car, and we’re exhausted. But, you say to yourself, “They can do it, we can do it.” On a physical basis we just had a very limited amount of time to fight and train. Unlike the movie, where Pat Johnson in the movie trained us all separately and we trained for months.

Hopefully, somebody will give us an extra day so we can make this a little easier. The kids had to do a lot of more fighting, and the kids don’t get a lot of time. There’s not a lot of time with the stunt people; the stunt people are brilliant.

Let’s talk about the finale a little bit. When Johnny sent Kreese away at the end of Episode Eight, when I was watching it I was thinking, “Kreese is got to be lurking around somewhere, right?” That wasn’t the end of him.

Tell me something: Why did you think that? Why did you think that? Even after he fires me and it’s a very emotional scene. Why in the world would you think I had to be lurking around?

Because that’s Kreese’s character. He doesn’t just sneak away with his head down. He saw the weakness and he knew how to exploit it. When you were told you’d be at almost the very end of Episode 10 again, and basically you’re taking over Cobra Kai in a very sneaky way, did you think, ‘Hey, this is on brand for Kreese. Kreese has got the upper hand back’? What potential did you see from that scene where he’s got this subset of the Cobra Kai students and he’s basically got his own dojo now, or he got it back?

Well, it’s a twofold answer there. Billy and I just love acting those moments. The moments of where that happens in the office in the dojo. Personally, the character felt … I felt that I was losing this son that I wanted to have as my own son and have him adapt to my ways. This is why the coaching was working out and we were working out well together as partners in the dojo. That now was not happening. When he fires me, I’ve got to unfortunately retaliate. I can’t allow the integrity of Cobra Kai … which is the only thing John Kreese cares about more than Johnny Lawrence … I cannot allow the Cobra Kai integrity to suffer because … you know what I say in the scene. “You want it to be a blanket. You want to be covered like a blanket?” Well, that is the essence of his defense of Cobra Kai.

He’ll respect me one day for setting him straight. But I’m not going to go away because Cobra Kai has got to maintain itself and we got it back on its feet since 30 years ago. I’m going to keep it on its feet. Cobra Kai never dies.

What did you want to mention about Season Two that we hadn’t talked about?

Well, I just think that I loved playing the character when he has multiple moments of vulnerability, and is indecisive. I guess the scenes where at the end of Episode 1 was, as an actor, so much fun to play. I just love that. And how everybody reads the manipulation into this guy is, everybody read the manipulation. They just read the darkness. I say to my son, I say, “Have I really done that? Why can’t people not see that there’s a light in this character, and he’s not raising hypno-youth? He’s trying to protect society, protect it from being weak, protect kids from being weak. It’s a tough time.” Sure, it’s not 1940s, World War II. We didn’t know if we’d speak German in a year.

What I enjoy most is that [the producers] get that; That I really have a life. It’s not that stoic monster from the Karate Kid One movie. It’s really a guy with his own personal problems which are elusive because he’s got such and ego and because he’s got such a mandate, to basically be the sheriff in town. You don’t break the law. You don’t load a gun; I’ll pop you over the head like Wyatt Earp and I throw you in jail. There’s no gray area. There’s my way or the highway I think, discovering a little bit more about the middle is what’s exciting for me as the actor. I think these guys are going to write that in Season Three.

What kind of exploration of the character do you get to do in Cobra Kai Season 3 if there is one?

It’d probably be interesting to see if there’s a woman in his life. Also, in his way, it’d be quite interesting in his macho style, if kids like Miguel have problems, and Hawk has problems that they do and [Johnny] deals with them. It’d be interesting to see how John Kreese deals with emotional problems with some of the students.

How many movies have we seen where the bad guy turns good and he always dies at the end? I don’t want to die because I’d like to go on with this show; there’s so much to play. But the thing is, I’d like to get involved, sort of like [Johnny] did, but it would be a different approach with the students because I don’t really have a lot of patience. I didn’t really have a lot of time to investigate their problems and find a solution. When I do, it’s really a gasp. It’s like General Patton taking a moment to help you with your carburetor.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

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