Dante Basco

**Dante R. Basco** (born August 29, 1975) is an American film, television and voice actor. He is best known for his role as Rufio, the leader of the Lost Boys in Steven Spielberg's *Hook* and for his many voice acting roles, most notably as Prince Zuko from Nickelodeon's *Avatar: The Last Airbender* and Jake Long from Disney Channel's *American Dragon: Jake Long*.

## Early life

Dante Basco is a Filipino American born in Pittsburg, California, and raised in Cerritos and Paramount, California. He has four siblings, including actor Dion Basco. In Dante's early years, he was part of the Streat Freaks breakdancing crew.Template:Citation needed He attended Orange County High School of the Arts in the Music and Theatre Conservatory and graduated in 1993.

## Career

He got into acting taking on minor roles in television. Basco's breakout performance was when he appeared as the leader Rufio of the Lost Boys in Steven Spielberg's 1991 film *Hook* with Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman. A punk band was later named after this character.

Basco had guest roles on television shows *The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air* and *Hangin' with Mr. Cooper* and had a recurring role on *Moesha*. After portraying characters of various Asian ethnicity except his own, he portrayed a Filipino American alongside his three brothers and sister in the independent film *The Debut*. He and his brothers starred in the sitcom *Naked Brown Men*. He played a gay teenager in the 1999 film *But I'm A Cheerleader*. He starred as breakdancer Ramos in the 2006 film *Take the Lead* alongside Antonio Banderas. In many films, he hip hop dances as he did in a Verizon Wireless commercial, as well as rapping and breaking in a Sprite commercial. He produced and co-starred in a music video parody of the song "Rehab" called "Wiihab".Template:Citation needed

In June 2017, he agreed with Jonah Feingold to work on a new film together, *Bangarang*, about the character Rufio. The development of the project started with a Kickstarter campaign.

Basco streams gameplay on Twitch.

Basco released his memoir *From Rufio to Zuko* through the independent publisher, Not a Cult.

### Voice acting

 File:Dante Basco Aug 2014.jpg
Basco has done voice acting for many animated productions, including Zuko in *Avatar: The Last Airbender* and Jake Long in *American Dragon: Jake Long*. He also voice acted Kwok Wong in The Proud Family. He voiced Matt Martin/Kewl Breeze in the short-lived animated series *Zevo-3.* He is also Iroh II in *The Legend of Korra.*

He contributed several voices for the video game *Saints Row*, as well as voicing Shingo in the video games *Skate*, *Skate 2* and *Skate 3*. He voiced Seeing Farther in the video game *Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood* and the Asmodian male youth voice for the MMORPG game *Aion: Tower of Eternity*. He's also in the games *Scarface: The World Is Yours*, *Aion*, *Aion: Upheaval* and *Mortal Kombat X*.

## Awards

* Young Artist Award – *Hook*
	+ **Won** – Best Ensemble Cast
	+ **Nominated** – Best Young Actor

## References

1. ↑ "Dante R Basco, Born 08/29/1975". California Birth Index. http://www.californiabirthindex.org/birth/dante\_r\_basco\_born\_1975\_12486180. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
2. ↑ Farris, Christopher (February 11, 2019). "These Filipinos Are the Voices of Modern Cartoon and Anime Characters". Hearst Communications. Archived from the original on July 8, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190708091145/https://www.esquiremag.ph/culture/movies-and-tv/filipino-voice-actors-a00288-20190211-lfrm2. Retrieved June 30, 2020.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Social Encore: Kinetic's perspective". Honolulu Pulse. 22 March 2013. Archived from the original on 24 October 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20141024130956/http://www.honolulupulse.com/2013/03/social-encore-kinetic-films/. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
4. ↑ Catherine Gewertz (December 26, 1992). "The Fine Art of Fame". *LA Times*. http://articles.latimes.com/1992-12-26/local/me-2318\_1\_junior-high-school?pg=2.
5. ↑ "Hook Actor Dante Basco Remembers Robin Williams With Touching Video and Letter". E!. 12 August 2014. http://www.eonline.com/news/568589/hook-actor-dante-basco-remembers-robin-williams-with-touching-video-and-letter. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
6. ↑ Ada Tsend (28 June 2017). "Remember Rufio in 'Hook'? The actor is trying to keep his cult character's legacy alive". https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/remember-rufio-in-hook-the-actor-is-trying-to-keep-his-cult-characters-legacy-alive/2017/06/28/65fdf642-5863-11e7-b38e-35fd8e0c288f\_story.html. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Oller, Jacob (2020-07-10). "Avatar: The Last Airbender's Dante Basco on 'tango' of doing live, audience-driven Twitch show" (in en). https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/dante-basco-interview-artificial-twitch.
8. ↑ "Dante Basco talks Hollywood at LMU". Los Angeles Loyolan. 30 September 2014. http://www.laloyolan.com/arts\_and\_entertainment/dante-basco-talks-hollywood-at-lmu/article\_4f2f158c-483e-11e4-8cd3-0017a43b2370.html. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "'The Legend of Korra' Creators Preview the Season Finale and as Karate Kid In Justice League Trapped In Time.". Wall Street Journal. 19 Jun 2012. https://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/06/19/the-legend-of-korra-creators-preview-the-finale/. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
10. ↑ "Picks and Pans Review: Riot". *People*. 29 April 1997. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20121919,00.html. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
11. ↑ Template:Cite tweet
12. ↑ Template:Cite tweet
Template:Cite tweet

## External links

* Template:IMDb name
* Template:Amg name
* Dante Basco's blog on Tumblr
* Template:Twitch

Template:Authority control