Elisabeth Shue Says She Was ‘a Little Worried’ to Reprise Her Karate Kid Role in Cobra Kai

Elisabeth Shue is opening up about reprising her Karate Kid role in Cobra Kai.

During a panel discussion at MegaCon Orlando on Sunday, Feb. 9, Shue, 61, admitted she was “a little worried” about playing Ali Mills Schwarber again, but was “very honored to be included in the Cobra Kai family.”

Cobra Kai — which is set 30-plus years after the original film which premiered in 1984 — follows the rivalry between two martial-arts rivals: Johnny and Daniel. In the Karate Kid films, Shue’s Ali is the love interest of both Johnny and Daniel. After ending things with Johnny, she takes an immediate liking to Daniel — fueling a rivalry between the two boys.

On Cobra Kai, Ali is a Denver-based pediatric surgeon married to an oncologist named Gregory Schwarber. She reunites with her childhood sweetheart in hopes of bringing them together.

At MegaCon, Shue joked that she wondered whether a reprisal of the role would “ever happen,” adding: “Actually, I was a little worried about going on the show at first because I didn’t like the way my character had been written out of Karate Kid 2.”

Shue’s character did not appear in the second film, with her character only referenced in one line — when Daniel mentions they had broken up. She agreed to reprise the role all these years later after the series creators “told me that we could discuss what happened — the real truth.”

“It’s all about the vindication of Ali,” she said. “We needed that. Without Ali, there is no Karate Kid. There is no Cobra.”

After getting a start on YouTube Red/YouTube Premium in 2018, Cobra Kai moved to Netflix in 2020.  The third part of the hit show’s sixth and final final season will be released later this month.

In a letter penned to fans, series creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg said they wanted the show to “end on our terms.” They shared that it was their “day one goal” to be able to tell each character’s story from beginning to end the way they imagined.

The reators have, however, teased the possibility of spinoff series’, with Schlossberg telling The Hollywood Reporter in July 2024: “Cobra Kai itself is, in a way, a spinoff of The Karate Kid. … We feel like we could do that with any of the characters on the show. We think about the fun of following them in their futures and in, addition, we think about the past.”

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The last part of Cobra Kai‘s final season premieres Feb. 13 on Netflix.