Dante Basco: Rufio to Zuko | Navigating Hollywood as a Pioneering Asian American Actor

Actor Dante Basco is a 30+ year Filipino Asian-American Hollywood veteran, best known as RUFIO, the leader of the Lost Boys, in Stephen Spielberg’s “HOOK” where he was featured alongside Robin Williams, Julia Roberts, and Dustin Hoffman.
Dante shares his perspective on the business of acting, competing, recognizing greatness, staying creative, and more.
▶︎ WATCH the full Dante Basco interview at Hollywood Real with Jay Menez on YouTube.
Dante is also known as the voice of Prince Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender, and for the title role in American Dragon: Jake Long.
Other TV and film credits include The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Entourage, Moesha, Hawaii Five-0, The Perfect Weapon, BikerBoyz, and The Head Thieves, to name a few.
An original hip hop artist, Dante, and his brothers gained local notoriety in the California Bay Area as an 80’s breakdancing group before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue acting.
Earlier this year, Dante released his book, "From Rufio to Zuko,” a personal memoir that chronicles the stories from his life as a pioneering Asian American actor. Get it here: https://amzn.to/31Uo9O
At the beginning of today’s conversation, Dante mentioned a film we worked on together a few years ago, but we never came back to discuss it. So here’s a quick summary:
In 2017, Dante and I worked together on a feature film project, The Head Thieves. It starred Dante & Dion Basco and EP Mickey Gooch, and I was a producer with Director/Writer Mike Hermosa. We had an amazing cast and crew and the experience was extraordinary.
A fun fact is that every crew member on location had a cameo in the movie. We even created a music video starring the entire cast and crew and friends. The film won six festival awards, including two for Best Feature Film.
IG @DanteBasco

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