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Cobra Kai‘s Courtney Henggeler has quit acting after 20 years. Cobra Kai is a Netflix series spinoff of Karate Kid that brings back the now-legendary martial arts star Daniel LaRusso, who is once again a rival for Johnny Lawrence. It had six seasons on the streaming platform, beginning in 2018 and wrapping up in 2025. Henggeler plays Amanda LaRusso on the series, who is the wife of lead Daniel, with whom she shares two children.
As per Henggeler’s own Substack, the actor moves to quit acting after 20 years in the industry. She began her post by writing “After 20 plus years of fighting the good fight in the acting business, I hung up my gloves on Friday.” She described her life as “the hustle, the grind, sprinkled occassionally with the odd acting job” and had to “survive[] off crumbs.” After 20 years, she decided she was exhausted with being “a cog in the wheel of machine,” and she will leave acting as a result.
What This Means For Courtney Henggeler
She Had A Lot Of Guest Star Roles
Years before she became a lead character on Cobra Kai, Henggeler had tiny role after tiny role. She first appeared on screen as a character named Susan Beth in the movie The Bog Creatures in 2003. Throughout the next two decades, the actor would occassionally be on big-name shows (e.g. House, NCIS, Mom, Bones, and Jane the Virgin, to name a few) but always in guest-star appearances. Those familiar with The Big Bang Theory universe may recognized her as Missy Cooper from the flagship series, but even that part only lasted two episodes.
In her writing, Henggeler acknowledged how big of a deal this was in this particular part of her career. In more recent years, she was “considered one of the lucky ones” because she “was on a series,” referring to Cobra Kai. This was by far the biggest role in her career. In that time, however, Henggler still did not get many other role opportunities, showcasing the continued struggle that she describes.
More to come…
Source: Courtney Henggeler / Substack