The star of hit Netflix series Cobra Kai has revealed how Sir Sean Connery inspired his acting career and they then became good friends.
Martin Kove, who went on to star as the villain in the 1984 Hollywood blockbuster The Karate Kid, has told how the James Bond legend first helped him find his feet as an actor.
Kove, who has reprised his role as the sadistic John Kreese in the TV series sequel to the original Karate Kid trilogy, said: “I was Sean Connery ’s stand-in in 1972 when I was still acting in New York for a movie called The Anderson Tapes.
“I was like a glorified extra. I learned one thing. I learned how to listen by watching Sean Connery. Then, probably 15 years later, I’d done The Karate Kid, I was a little more established.
"I bumped into him on the tennis court and said, ‘Do you remember me?’ and he said, ‘No, but do you want to hit the ball?’
“I said, ‘Sure.’ We were hitting the ball and he was terrible. He had a back problem and he was cursing like we do as teenagers and I’m cracking up hysterically because I’m saying on the other side of the court, 'I’m playing tennis with James Bond and he’s cursing just like I do'.
“I couldn’t hit the ball back either because I was laughing so hard. Then we became friends.”
Kove, 76, is one of several actors who reprised their original Karate Kid roles in the Netflix spin-off series. He is back as the cruel Vietnam veteran.
The series, which also sees the return of Ralph Macchio and William Zakba, as now middle-aged martial arts rivals Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, has become the most watched show on the streaming channel.
But Kove says his own career would likely not have taken off had Connery not talked him out of accepting a place at New York’s prestigious Fame academy.
The Edinburgh -born Scot praised Kove for having played the lead in a small production of the Sophocles’ Greek tragedy, Antigone, and encouraged him to try out for other parts instead.
Kove added: “I was accepted to a classic repertory company and I was accepted also to the NYU school of the arts. I posed the question, ‘Do I go back to school or do this?’.
“He said, ‘Young man, if you can do Antigone, you can do anything’ – which meant go work with the repertory company.”
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