Why Bold and the Beautiful Star Sean Kanan Modeled Himself After Rocky Villain

When Sean Kanan was cast as bad boy Mike Barnes in Karate Kid III, he already had the martial arts skills needed to take on the role. The Bold and the Beautiful actor recently revealed that he added a purposeful cosmetic look to his appearance in order to give Mike an intimidating edge to Ralph Macchio’s Daniel.

He Will Break You

“I intentionally chose to cut my hair like Drago,” Kanan revealed on social media in response to a poster who ran side by side photos of Kanan’s Mike Barnes and Lundgren’s Ivan Drago. “I was and am still a big fan of Rocky IV and @Dolph_Lundgren #CobraKai #MikeBarnes.”

The original poster, COBRA KAI & MIYAGI FANG OFFICAL, ran photos of the two characters next to one another on X, formerly known as Twitter, commenting, “Both alike both aggressive and both have the same haircut.”

Kanan’s homage to Drago resulted in the actor picking up an admirer of his very own. “Bro, I deliberately cut my hair in high school to be like yours. I never told you that, but I did,” posted Daniel LaMontagne, along with a photo from his high school yearbook.

“Hey that’s a great picture but you know what here’s it here’s a good thing I came up with,” offers James Bonica, who weighed in on Kanan’s post, “if your character with a fight Drago he would win because he’s like all muscle, but my [money] would be on [Mike Barnes] because he would do whatever it takes to win.”

Lundgren debuted in Rocky IV, which hit movie theaters nearly 40 years ago in 1985. His character, Drago, was responsible for the death of Rocky’s (Sylvester Stallone) pal and ex-opponent Apollo Creed (the late Carl Weathers) after they faced off in a boxing ring. The actor reprised the role of Drago in Creed II, which was released in 2018.

Sean Kanan has reprised his role as Mike Barnes in the Karate Kid sequel series Cobra Kai, which can be seen on Netflix.