If you happen to glimpse Peyton List at a stoplight and she’s got a head wound, take it with a grain of salt. “I love messing with people,” says the “Cobra Kai” actress, whose character relishes a no-holds-barred fight. List’s been known to drive home with her busted-up makeup still on, and likes to watch people’s reactions en route. “I’ll just look over and casually nod. I want them to be like, ‘That girl is really going through it.’ ”
I’ve reached the 23-year-old in her LA apartment a mere hour before she’s slated to fly back to the “Cobra Kai” set in Atlanta. The young cast has grown close; last week, they all went to Ralph Macchio’s 60th birthday party.
“He treats us like his family,” says List, who plays Tory Nichols on Macchio’s hit series, now shooting its fifth season. “The people he wanted there were his actual family, and us. We all made videos for him, and Billy [Zabka] was there trying to get them to play. I was really confused why Billy was trying to help with the tech,” she says, giggling that her 56-year-old colleague is bad with computers. Or is that his character? Johnny is hilariously inept with the internet on the show, trapped as he is in the cultural amber of the 1980s. “Maybe I haven’t separated them,” List says with a laugh.
There may be a nearly four-decade age difference between List and the show’s two elder stars, but the three of them are members of a rarefied club: They’ve all been famous for most of their lives.
List started acting at the age of 4, and early on made a brief appearance on the soap “As the World Turns” as “Little girl in diner.” She played a young Katherine Heigl in the 2008 movie “27 Dresses,” then rocketed to fame at 13 on the 2011 Disney series “Jessie,” playing bubbly tween Emma Ross. List’s character was so popular that Emma continued on to the spinoff series “Bunk’d,” as well as appearances by the character on other Disney shows. She also played love interest Holly Hills in the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” movie adaptation and sequel.
Like List, Macchio and Zabka were in their teens when they became stars, via the original “Karate Kid” movie in 1984. “Cobra Kai” reunites Macchio’s now middle-aged character, Daniel LaRusso, and his onetime bully, Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence, as they run competing karate dojos for a new generation of high school kids in the San Fernando Valley. List began the series as one of Johnny’s students, a self-reliant, prickly working-class teen who chafes at the privilege of Daniel’s rich-kid students.
In the upcoming Season 4, due out December 31, “We’re training for the All Valley tournament, and I feel like it might as well be life or death to all these kids,” List says. The show is the rare revival that really works, in part because of its willingness to grant complexity to its characters, even the ones who do things that seem irredeemably mean.
“‘It’s never too late’ is kind of the whole premise,” List says. “There are all these complicated relationships. It’s never too late for a second chance. With Johnny, it’s like, he didn’t peak in the ’80s. He can come back. I love a redemption story.” On set, she likes to hit up Macchio for stories about the set of “The Outsiders,” one of her favorite old movies, and what it was like to be a teen megastar in the ’80s.
“I’m so curious about how the industry was back then, versus now,” says List. She thinks it’s easier for a kid to get into her industry these days — “If you want to make a name for yourself, you can create content on social media, you can blow up and show your talent even if you’re an introvert” — but there’s a relentlessness to fame now that Zabka and Macchio didn’t have to deal with.
“I’ve never been diagnosed with anxiety,” List says, “but I have been very anxious about phones and cameras my whole life. I would be eating alone, and then someone would capture a photo or video, and I’d find it later and be like, ‘Oh my god.’ You know, just eating my sandwich.”
Lately, she’s been exploring ways to combat anxiety. “I’ve been meditating, using the Waking Up app,” she says. “I’ve met people who tell me, ‘Just go away to the middle of nowhere and be alone with yourself, and do things where you’re not performing for someone else.’ ”
As a veteran of the industry, List has spent much of her life in the places you need to be: LA and New York. Lately, she’s been mulling a move. “Now that I don’t have to audition in person anymore, because it’s all on Zoom, it’s opened the whole world up,” she says. “Where do I want to live now?” The first place that springs to her mind is Canada’s Vancouver Island, where she recently filmed a thriller for Netflix. “It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. I’m not a runner, but I started running seven miles a day just because I wanted to see the place.”
She also likes Miami, where she recently visited a friend in college. List is a Florida native, but moved to New York at an early age with her wine sommelier dad and high school English and drama teacher mom; she mostly remembers the state from her trips to Disney World to do promos for the shows. In Miami, she gets to loosen up and hang out like a regular 20-something. “I love the architecture, and how colorful the city is,” she says. Also, she adds, the Cuban sandwiches.
After her Disney show years, List was eager to expand and show off her range with “Cobra Kai.” “I really didn’t know what people were going to think. I liked proving to myself that I could do it. But I still find myself struggling with that whole fraud thing,” she says. Like so many women who deal with imposter syndrome, in reality, she’s crushing it. But she’s had to make her way through some rough patches to get there.
“You go through awkward body things,” she says of having her adolescence take place on camera. “I remember seeing a comment where someone said, ‘I watch “Jessie” to see if Peyton List wears shorts,’ and it was some older guy, and I was like, I don’t ever want to wear shorts on the show again.
“It was pretty tough,” she says. “And I think I learned the power of a woman’s body. It’s crazy to me. It’s just a butt, or boobs, or legs or whatever. Now it’s great to feel like, I really, truly don’t care. But it took me so long to get there.”
When List’s fans approach her, “I feel like they’re my friends, which is really weird,” she says. “Kids are so cool now. I want to pick their brains. It gives me an excuse to talk to kids who wouldn’t necessarily think I’m cool now. Sometimes that makes me feel old, and I’ve never felt old before. I’ve always been the kid on the set, the young one coming in.” She pauses. “Is this how Billy and Ralph feel??”
Editor: Serena French; Stylist: Anahita Moussavian; Photo Editor: Jessica Hober; Fashion Assistants: Elizabeth Vianale, Sean Rodriguez; Hair: Gianluca Mandelli at The Wall Group; Makeup: Pablo Rivera at Artist Management; Manicure: Lorena Henao at Creative Management
On location: Our cover shoot took place at the glimmering Ritz-Carlton Residences, Sunny Isles Beach, just north of Miami. The 52-story, glass-clad tower — designed by Arquitectonica’s Bernardo Fort-Brescia and Michele Bönan on 250 feet of Atlantic beachfront — offers luxurious hotel-style amenities, including a private club, a spa, a pool deck, a surfside restaurant and a fitness center. Its 209 homes, priced from $2.25 million, boast unobstructed ocean views, private entrances and walk-in closets. But with nearly 90 percent of the building sold (including its four prize penthouses), only a few sun-drenched units remain. Find more details at 305-503-5811 or TheResidencesSunnyIslesBeach.com.
