Cobra Kai V: Thomas Ian Griffith talks challenges of filming fights for the latest season

[MILD SEASON 5 SPOILERS BELOW]

Crackerjack is back! The great villain from The Karate Kid Part III, Terry Silver, played by the great Thomas Ian Griffith, makes his grand return by stepping up to the main villain role in season five of Cobra Kai. We continue our roundtable discussion with the cast as our own Chris Bumbray talks with the Excessive Force star about the challenges of filming this season.

Chris: In all the fights in Cobra Kai, what fight was most challenging from a physical standpoint?

Griffith: It’s funny because, when they said they were gonna bring Chozen back at the end of season 4, they talked to me and it was like, “The two villains from the movies! This is gonna be electric! Everyone’s anticipating that!” and it’s like, how are we going to deliver on that? And it was during the weapons competition [of the All Valley Tournament in season 4], I’m watching, and I leaned over to one of the creators and said, “I’m really good at swords.” And I knew that Don Lee, our fight choreographer, was a weapons expert, and I’m going, “Let’s go for this!” So, we presented this idea to him, and he was like, “…I don’t know if they can do this.” And sure enough, season five comes, and we’re gonna have this great battle! We’re gonna whip out swords! Oh my God! Then, the danger factor just goes up. And on our shooting schedule, you don’t have that much time, and we have to rehearse. But Yuji [Chozen] was so committed to saying let’s just break it down, let’s build up till we get to the speed. You know, when you’re doing it with Don Lee, we’re going 90 miles an hour. You go on set, and you go, “We gotta tone this down a little bit!” But we worked it up to performance level. So I think that was the most challenging where I thought I hope I didn’t bite off more than I could chew. But I think it’s really cool! And it’s so unexpected and so different! And I think, with the two great senseis, the audience deserves something they hadn’t seen before.

Here, you can view the first part of our roundtable discussion with Dallas Dupree Young, who plays Kenny Payne.
Stay tuned for more!

Season five of Cobra Kai, with Thomas Ian Griffith, is currently streaming on Netflix.