‘Cobra Kai’ Star Courtney Henggeler Quits Acting After 20 Years: “I’m Done Being a Cog. I Want to Be the Machine”

After two decades of chasing roles, Courtney Henggeler is walking away from the business — on her terms.

The actress, best known for playing Amanda LaRusso on all six seasons of Cobra Kai, announced in a raw and reflective Substack post that she’s officially stepping away from acting. “I called my agents and told them I was tapping out,” she wrote. “I no longer wanted to be a cog in the wheel of the machine. When prompted to know what I did want to do, I simply replied, ‘I want to be the machine.’”

It’s not bitterness. It’s clarity. Henggeler isn’t just quitting — she’s reclaiming control. After years of hustling for bit parts and recurring roles that rarely recurred, she says the real grind wasn’t in the art — it was in the wait. “All I’ve ever known in my professional life was acting,” she said. “But not even the art or craft of acting. All I’ve truly ever knew was the hustle. The grind. Sprinkled occasionally with the odd acting job.”

Her breakout didn’t come until Cobra Kai, which began on YouTube Red before becoming a Netflix hit. For six seasons, she played the sharp, grounded Amanda LaRusso — the wife of Ralph Macchio’s Daniel and mother to Samantha and Anthony. The show ended its run in February 2025 after seven years, wrapping with its split season six following delays from the Hollywood strikes.

Before that, Henggeler’s career was a long road of blink-and-miss TV credits. Her first was a single line on House. She recently had a role in George Clooney’s The Boys in the Boat, but even then, she writes, the industry still felt like a maze of gatekeepers and endless auditions.

“What if we’ve been handing our power away because we were told that’s how it’s done?” she wrote. “We run the gauntlet to prove our worth. To earn our place. What if we never needed to run it at all? What if we are the gauntlet?”

For Henggeler, the answer is simple: it’s time to stop waiting. She’s building something new — not for permission, not for praise, but because she’s ready to take up space without asking.