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, Jake Long from Disney Channel's American Dragon: Jake Long, and Spin Kick from Carmen Sandiego.

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 Street Freaks breakdancing crew. He attended Orange County High School of the Arts in the Music and Theatre Conservatory and graduated in 1993.

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."

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.

Avatar: Braving the Elements, an official Nickelodeon companion podcast to Avatar: The Last Airbender, premiered on June 22, 2021 hosted by Basco and Janet Varney. The podcast is an episode-by-episode deep dive into the Avatarverse with special guest appearances.

Voice acting

Basco has done voice acting for many animated productions, including Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Jai Kell in Star Wars Rebels 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 also voiced General Iroh, Zuko's grandson, 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 has also provided voices for the games Aion, Aion: Upheaval and Mortal Kombat X.

Film

Television

Web series

Video games

• Young Artist Award – Hook
  • Won – Best Ensemble Cast
  • Nominated – Best Young Actor