The Karate Kid Takes a Gap Year

It's the end of an era for Cobra Kai star Xolo Maridueña. On the eve of the series finale, he tells GQ what's next: a soul- searching stint in New York City.

- By EILEEN CARTTER

THE ACTOR XOLO Maridueña moved to New York City for the same reason as many of us do: to figure himself out. Maridueña has been employed since he was a tween. But suddenly, surprisingly-thankfully?-the 23-year-old Los Angeles native found himself with some time to spare ahead of his next gig and thought, Why not try out the opposite coast?

“I'm here because for the first time in 10 years I have six months off,” he says. Now he’s pondering the abiding question: All right, well, who am I outside of work?”

To find out, Maridueña has been collecting quintessential New York experiences. He shares his Brooklyn apartment with a couple: the fellow actors Jacob Bertrand and Peyton List, with whom he stars on the wildly popular Netflix series Cobra Kai, set 34 years after Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso triumphs over a swept leg to become the San Fernando Valley's reigning karate champ in The Karate Kid. (Maridueña’s Miguel Diaz is a riff on Daniel, a scrawny Reseda teen who nourishes his inner underdog via the principles of martial arts.) “It’s like Friends,” he says of his roommates. “It’s been nice to already have a little built-in ecosystem.”

On this rainy weeknight, Maridueña suggested we meet for omakase – “I am obsessed with sushi!” – and, en route to a BYOB spot in Manhattan’s East Village, we make a pit stop at a corner bodega for refreshments. (Maridueña tells me he's recently grown fond of deli-made sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches, another NYC rite of passage.) We grab a six-pack of Modelos from the glass-doored fridges in the back, and, as we check out. Maroon 5's “She Will Be Loved” plays over the sound system.

Then we are, quite literally, out on a corner in the pouring rain.

Maridueña, who is such a chatterbox (his term) that he cohosts the often-autobiographical weekly podcast