Pat Morita famously played Mr. Miyagi to Ralph Macchio's Daniel LaRusso in "The Karate Kid"—but Pat almost didn't land the part, and Ralph explains why.
"No one wanted him for the role [of Mr. Miyagi]," Ralph explains. "No one wanted Arnold from 'Happy Days.' He was a stand-up comic and Miyagi was this character of such breadth and great depth. The humor, they believed he could handle, but maybe not all of that. The director, John, and the casting director brought him in—there's actually a video tape on YouTube of his first audition and my first audition as those characters cut together. It's really worth a look. And I write about that in [Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me]—that soulful magic that he brought that I felt in a half a second. As soon as we started talking, it was meant to be."
