'Cobra Kai' Stars Xolo Maridueña and Mary Mouser Opened Up About Their Awkward First Kiss

From Men's Health

While viewers tune into Cobra Kai on Netflix for high-octane martial arts fights and '80s nostalgia, they also get a great big dose of high school drama, propelled largely by teenage charactrs Miguel Diaz and Samantha LaRusso. In a new video with Netflix UK & Ireland, Xolo Maridueña and Mary Mouser, who play the starcrossed young sweethearts, reveal the ever-so-slightly cringeworthy story of their first on-screen kiss in Season 1.

Xolo recalls how early on in the production, he heard that Mary prefers not to kiss someone for the first time on camera, and would rather get the "heebie-jeebies" out of the way with her on-screen love interests before they start filming.

"So I'm over here shoveling packets of gum in my mouth, Listerine strips are in constant rotation throughout that day, and [director] Steve Pink has the great idea of cutting more than half of our montage off, because I'm under 18 and incapable of being able to shoot for more than nine and a half hours," he says. "Lo and behold, Mary Mouser asks me, 'hey Xolo, I feel like our first kiss shouldn't be on camera, and I'd feel more comfortable if we had it off-screen'... And now I'm really shitting my pants."

"So I lean into the kiss," he continues, "only to hear the best words one can hear when you're about to kiss your co-star. Mary very silently, and very timidly, says 'Xolo, I'm nervous, you are like a brother to me.' To which I open my eyes and say, 'that is quite possibly the worst thing you could have said.'"

But it gets even more awkward, as Mary explains.

"I remember calling you, because I wasn't thinking 'oh his mom's going to be in the car and that would be a weird conversation to have,'" she says. "I called him afterwards like 'Sorry dude... did you have a good day?' And I remember the pain in his voice, he was like 'Yeah, it was a lot of fun.' And I was like 'oh god, I really messed up.'"

Later on in the video, Xolo and Mary talk about their other "firsts," including their first on-screen gig, their first social media accounts, and their first experience of watching the original Karate Kid movies.

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