Three decades after his diabolical turn as Cobra Kai sensei John Kreese in The Karate Kid, Martin Kove still can intimidate moviegoers.

The 68-year-old actor, who will join fellow cast members Billy Zabka and Ralph Macchio at a 30th anniversary screening and Q&A as part of New York Super Week in Manhattan Saturday, says that his character’s enduring menace still has the ability to freak people out in real life.

“Billy and I had an experience in San Antonio. People really think that we’re that much of hard asses,” Kove tells For The Win. “We’re walking through this corridor and one of the security guys sneezes. The guy was about five feet away and he sneezes. He looks at us and says ‘excuse me’ and he realizes who’s passing him as he sneezes. And he cowered like we were going to kill him for sneezing. We cracked up. He looked at us and you could see the change in expression in his face. When he looked at us it actually stopped us from walking he was saying ‘I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry’ like we were going to hurt him. I hadn’t really noticed the sneeze. I think I said ‘Bless you.'”

“It happens all the time. People always think you’re that character. Especially when Billy and I are together. Little kids used to punch me in the supermarket and their mothers would have to come up and apologize.”

When he’s not intimidating people on the streets, Kove maintains a cinematic passion rooted in the Western genre. He makes an annual trip to Wyoming with his son Jesse, an aspiring filmmaker, to view the historic hideouts visited by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

“I’d love for him to make a Western some day,” Kove says.

While Kove’s historical interests may lend more to the 1880s than 1980s, he was kind enough to take For The Win down memory lane with five behind the scenes stories about his Karate Kid experience.

1) He cursed out the director in his first Karate Kid audition

It was very frustrating because they didn’t give me much time to prepare for the first reading. I went in there and did this reading “Mercy is for the weak, in here or on the streets” as I walk up and down the dojo. I was given the script on a Monday and on Tuesday they called me . Originally they said I could have the whole week to prepare. I was really angry and venomous and at the time my wife said to use all this venom in that morning.

At 9 o’clock in the morning on Tuesday I get a call from the casting person and I’m really upset. Bottom line is I just used all this venom and anger and vented on John Avildsen and told him how we get rid of our agents and managers to find directors like yourself to read for and you don’t give me any time. I said “you’re an ” and so are you to the casting woman, I said “you’re an too” “Mercy is for the weak! In here or on the street!”

I completely berated them. It worked. I did the same thing with Jerry Weintraub. He was four days late to the movie.

2) The referee in the final tournament scene was a martial arts legend

I trained separately with Pat Johnson. He ran with Chuck Norris in the ’60s. He was great. We talked about different stances and the famous stance of me putting my hands in the waist. My elbows crossed. He gave me a lot of little points and even his kiai I used. “Ai-ch” It was the kiai I heard him use or some facsimile of that and I basically combined it with what I liked to do. Even the title The Karate Kid sounds like a Bruce Lee movie. Pat played the referee and was also our stunt coordinator on the movie.

3) Kove crafted his own mental backstory about Kreese to shape his understanding of the character

Kreese is how he was because in high school, college and then the Army, he was allowed to win and be triumphant as a martial artist. But when he went to Vietnam, he wasn’t. As so many of our boys came back and didn’t feel good about what they did or weren’t received well. Our soldiers weren’t allowed to win there.

When he came back, he swore he would never experience that feeling again and so he created a dojo and psychology where winning was the most important thing under any circumstances. Vis a vis, there lies the motto “Mercy is for the weak” and all those things he taught the Cobra Kai.

4) Sensei Kreese was supposed to be a much bigger character in The Karate Kid, Part III

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olxl1cDuvho

The real story of Terry Silver is I got that series Hard Time on Planet Earth . Terry Silver’s character was not in the script. I was to do everything. I was to do the sting operation, train both boys. It was Kreese who was doing it. When I got the series and I couldn’t get out of that because I was the star of that series and it started shooting at the same time as Karate Kid III, they had to put me out on vacation and they rewrote it and brought in the Terry Silver character that I ended up reading.

I was so upset. I ended up reading these actors and then I would run off into my car and cry. I’d come back, read them again, then run off and cry. I was just a mess. But we had to see that the chemistry worked between myself and an old friend who was now going to do what John Kreese was supposed to do in that screenplay. It was a terrible situation.

5) Kove injured his hand shooting the beginning of Karate Kid, Part II

In the original script, the parking lot was the final scene. They decided while we were waiting to film that scene, which ultimately began Karate Kid 2, and we never shot it in 1983. We were waiting to do it and in three hours they decided to end the movie in the tournament, which was a good decision.

A few years later we’re in the same parking lot doing that scene and the special effects guy was supposed to shatter the glass an inch before I reached it and it looked like my hand would go through it. It never worked in rehearsal. It was a lunge punch and I kept hitting the glass but didn’t break it because I would pull back a little bit because it was rehearsal. He said “Don’t worry, it’s going to work this time.”

So we roll the cameras and I didn’t lunge because I didn’t fully trust it so I just gave a punch over Pat Morita’s shoulder and of course it didn’t shatter from the gunpowder charge in the door. My fist shattered the glass. So going in, they used that scene and it’s really Martin Kove’s hand going through real glass.

Coming out we shot the next day with fake blood and all that. But going in, that’s for real.

