Dante Basco

Dante R. Basco (born August 29, 1975) is an American actor, voice actor, and dancer. He is best known for his role as Rufio in the 1991 live-action film Hook. He is also known for voicing Zuko in the Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Jake Long from the Disney series American Dragon: Jake Long.

Life and career

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 his early years, he was part of the Streat Freaks breakdancing crew. When he got into acting, he started taking on minor roles in television. He later appeared in his most famous role as the charismatic red-stripe-haired leader Rufio of the Lost Boys in Steven Spielberg's 1991 film Hook with Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman. Basco chose to characterize the role with some of the more aggressive alpha male traits of teenage boys so as to maximize the tension with Williams' Pan character. Many of Rufio's lines were improvised by Basco who was happy to go head on with Robin Williams, who was often popularly cited as the king of improvisation. A punk band is later named after this character. He attended Orange County High School of the Arts in the Music and Theatre Conservatory and graduated in 1993.

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Film Shorts // March 19-25, 2025

Fort Worth Weekly 19 Mar 2025
OPENING ... (Opens Friday) ... Also with Jane Zhang, Zou Yuanqing, Li Xueqin, Lü Xingchen, and Wu Jinyan ... Asian Persuasion (R) This comedy stars Dante Basco as an underachiever who concocts a scheme to avoid paying alimony to his rich ex-wife (Geneva Carr) ... .
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