The third season of Stranger Things was the Netflix original series' most ambitious yet, as the residents of Hawkins clashed with both the usual extra-dimensional monsters from the Upside-Down and the Soviet military infiltrating the small Indiana town. The season's stunt sequences were devised by veteran stunt coordinator and second unit director Hiro Koda, who's been nominated for an Emmy Award for his work on Stranger Things, and has also developed the fight scenes for the fan-favorite Karate Kid continuation series Cobra Kai for its first three seasons.

In an exclusive interview with CBR, Koda explained how he upped the ante for stunts and action in Stranger Things Season 3, shared how he crafted the signature fight scenes for Cobra Kai and teased what fans should expect next from both shows.

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Congratulations on your Emmy nomination! Let's talk about your work on Stranger Things as a stunt coordinator and second unit director.

Hiro Koda: Thank you! I wasn't part of the first two seasons, I was brought on for Season 3. I was a fan of the show myself before working on it, so when I came on for Season 3, I didn't think the action was going to be as big as it was. An assistant director that I worked with quite a few times -- he was my first AD on Outcast, as well as a couple other projects -- Tudor Jones, he put my name in for Stranger Things. So I came in for an interview and they brought me on board.

It was strange coming onto a show that's been going on for awhile because they've built their own family already and I'm the new guy coming in. So I had a lot to prove, but [series creators and showrunners] the Duffer Brothers challenged me quite a bit and it was an honor to step in and direct for them. I directed seven episodes of Season 3, so I was pretty busy doing both. [Laughs] But it was very exciting!

Season 3 was the most physical we've seen Hopper to date, especially fighting Grigori. How was it developing that with your stunt team and incorporating the actors as much as possible?

Koda: When I'm designing action and designing fights and choreographing, I will shoot a stunt pre-visualization. I will bring in my stunt team and we will shoot a whole sequence and I'll cut it together, put music to it, the whole thing, to present it to the directors and let them see what my ideas are for designing that sequence. It's also a really good tool for everybody to prove we're able to have something there and have something for everybody to look at so that once we're there shooting, everybody's on the same page.

And, at that point, we bring in the actors to learn their choreography, and David Harbour and Andrey Ivchenko were both amazing. They came in, rehearsed quite a few times and stayed with our stunt team quite a bit to rehearse. They had quite a few fights throughout the season and their smaller fights kind of built up to the fight in the generator room midseason to the finale at the end. David's really great. When I read the scripts, I take the action very seriously and I take the story very seriously and listen to what the directors are looking for and I'll go to the actors. And I talked to David, we had discussions about how his character is at the moment in each of those scenes, where his mindset is for that character so we can involve that in the scene and design of the action.

So both of those guys worked really hard, I was really proud of David and Andrey. They worked their butts off in that finale sequence, and that included the mirror room in the funhouse. There was a lot of stuff we were shooting that we completed in about four and a half days; I mean, they worked their butts off fighting over and over all day. [Laughs] So I was really proud of everybody; The stunt guys came in and took the big, hard hits, and David and Andrey really did make me proud.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, had you been brought back on to help develop stunts for Season 4?

Koda: We had started filming Season 4 but we did get shut down. We didn't get too far into it, and hopefully we'll get back to it at some point, if this pandemic will allow us and we can get some type of normalcy again.

Have you taken the downtime to plan and revise any of the action sequences for Season 4, or is everything just in a holding pattern?

Koda: I'm just in a holding pattern for now. I've been able to read some things but it's difficult for me to prep and do anything without having my stunt guys and team together and, during this pandemic obviously, we can't really have anybody working. The only thing I've been able to do is brainstorm on my own. And I've taken this time to spend really good family time that doesn't have work interrupting us, and that's been nice. I've also been doing tutorials on all these different types of 3D and motion-capture-type stuff and just learning things, computer-wise, to keep myself sane and busy during this pandemic. [Laughs]

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How was it transitioning from stunt actor and coordinator to second unit director on things like Outcast before joining Stranger Things and Cobra Kai?

Koda: Ultimately, my goal is to direct like my brother on John Wick, Chad Stahelski. He was a stunt guy who went on to second unit directing and is now directing films and doing very well. [Stunt coordinator and second unit director] Sam Hargrave just put out a film, directing Extraction for Netflix. That's my ultimate goal and what I've been pushing forward to do, and I've directed some television shows and one feature, but I'm pushing myself to stay very busy coordinating my stunt team.

I got my [Directors Guild of America] card back in 2000. I was doing a TV show for Warner Bros. called Birds of Prey. I was coordinating that show and able to do some second unit there for the season; we only got one season but that's where I got my DGA card. As I go along moving and coordinating, it's typical that if they are able to do second unit, they're able to take on second unit if they have the budget for it. And I push for that every time I work on a show because I designed the action and I know how I want to shoot it to make it seem pretty seamless.

Cobra Kai just joined the Netflix family, and you've been working on it since the beginning and really stepped it up in Season 2. How has it been working on that series?

Koda: That show has been incredible to work on! I'm super stoked that it's moved over to Netflix and they're getting ready to premiere Seasons 1 and 2 on Aug. 28, and soon after that, they should release Season 3. We already shot Season 3, it's done, it just hasn't been released yet. So hopefully, after 1 and 2 have been released, they'll release some teasers and maybe announce when Season 3 will drop; I don't know a date yet when that's going to happen.

But I've been on that show from the very beginning. Incredible show, incredible cast and crew. It's a tough show to do because we don't have as much time and as many days as something like Stranger Things. I mean, Stranger Things is very difficult and you have a lot of days to shoot but it always seems like you never have enough time or money to do it! [Laughs] Cobra Kai being a half-hour show means you have even shorter and it's a lot of fast-paced work and it's a lot of fun and it's tons and tons of fights. And a lot of people get to come in and they're all fans of The Karate Kid so they get to meet those guys from The Karate Kid movies. It's fun to have them there.

I feel like the younger cast is especially game to do their own stunts, especially in that Season 2 fight with the long tracking shot of that epic brawl. How was it putting that together?

Koda: Thankfully, I've been with that show from the very beginning, even way back before we started shooting Season 1. I started training these kids, Mary Mouser, Tanner Buchanan, Xolo Maridueña, Jacob Bertrand -- and more came in as we started shooting -- but those four, mainly, we started training prior to Season 1 and continued their training through the first season, prior to the second season, through the second season and the same thing with the third season. Those guys have done loads and loads of training and those kids have worked their tails off, they want to do as much as they can. Obviously, there are certain things they're not allowed to do. Some of them are minors and they're not allowed to do certain things for safety reasons.

But speaking of the Season 2 finale and that oner, it was a big deal and it took us quite a bit of time to put that together. I had to choreograph the fights together and figure out what was going to happen, and then I had to set up my pre-vis to figure out how I wanted the camera to move from fight to fight to fight to make sure we didn't have any cuts. That whole sequence, I want to say we had 90% was all cast -- there was a couple of little Texas switches where we had doubles come in and take some hard hits and then the cast came back in to pick it up, but the majority was all them. Those kids worked so hard and they wanted that oner to be as long as it could be, we all did, as long as we could get it without cutting. So they worked their butts off to make it work and on the day of shooting, we got that oner in about seven takes by the time we got it, which was incredible.

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With something as iconic as The Karate Kid franchise, what were you especially keen on bringing with your own voice for stunt coordination and direction?

Koda: I grew up in martial arts, my father was my instructor since I was 2 years old, and the original Karate Kid films were a major part of my life when I was a child. I'm a big fan of Ralph Macchio and William Zabka, and to be able to come on and to be asked to be the stunt coordinator on Cobra Kai was such an incredible feeling and a huge moment in my career. I was super stoked to be able to be a part of it.

It was the same thing with that show, I shot the pre-vis and brought on my stunt guys and the directors that came on, a lot of them really haven't shot a lot of action and the creators of that show -- Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg and Josh Heald -- they trust me 100%. They give me the reins to get in there, do what I need to do, and they usually have their story parts that they want to make sure are coming through, but other than that, they let me sort of take over with the action. And even when they're directing stuff, they let me come in and everything runs smooth. Just to have that trust with them is great. And getting the trust of Billy and Ralph and all the kids, I've been with the kids since the beginning, we built a wonderful relationship within work but also outside of work spending time together just training or whatever, so we have a really good relationship, all of us.

Just to close us out, what is one stunt, outside of the Cobra Kai Season 2 finale, that you're especially proud of?

Koda: All of the crazy stunts I've done over the years and it's made it on film and everybody went home safely, that's what I'm proud of. But I'm proud of everything I've done and that's part of my job as a stunt coordinator and director, it's never the same with different shows; Cobra Kai and Stranger Things are completely different shows, they both [are inspired by] the '80s and that's sort of it on how they relate. I've done Big Little Lies and that has nothing to do with those two shows. It's always something different. To be able to design action for all these different projects is fun. It's a challege for all these different types of shows.

I am super stoked for the finale of Stranger Things. It's a big, big sequence and it's an honor to direct that big fight sequence with the boys and David and Andrey and to get the blessing from the Duffer Brothers for the scene that I designed. It was such a massive scene to shoot, and in the end, I'm super proud of that sequence and the boys and stunt guys.

Created by the Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things stars Winona Ryder, Millie Bobbie Brown, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, Priah Ferguson, Cary Elwes and Maya Thurman-Hawke. The first three seasons are currently available on Netflix, and Season 4 has yet to receive a release date.

Starring William Zabka, Ralph Macchio, Courtney Henggeler, Xolo Maridueña, Mary Mouser, Tanner Buchanan and Martin Kove, the first two seasons of Cobra Kai will be released on Netflix Friday, Aug. 28.

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