Dante Basco
Dante Basco is an actor, born 1975.
Two 1991 films put him on screen as a teenager: The Perfect Weapon, where he played Jimmy Ho, and Hook, where he played Rufio, leader of the Lost Boys. Only one of them is remembered, and it is remembered hard. Rufio is a small part with an enormous silhouette, all attitude and hair, and it fixed Basco permanently in the memory of everyone who saw that film at the right age.
What he is genuinely good at is defiance with a wobble underneath it. He plays boys who are furious because they are hurt and would very much rather you noticed the fury. That is Rufio, and it is also Prince Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is the best work of his career and one of the great vocal performances in American animation: a voice that enters every scene already braced for an argument and keeps letting slip that it wants something else entirely. He was carrying a lead of his own at the same time, as the title character in American Dragon: Jake Long, and later came back to the Avatar world as General Iroh in The Legend of Korra.
The live-action work after Hook is a mixed bag of what was on offer: Dolph in But I'm a Cheerleader, Ramos in Take the Lead, motorcycle and fight pictures in Biker Boyz and Blood and Bone. Voice work turned out to be the steadier and much better half of the career, running from Flash Thompson in Ultimate Spider-Man through Jai Kell in Star Wars Rebels to Trese.
Movies (16)
- Hook (1991)
- Love Don't Co$t a Thing (2003)
- Blood and Bone (2009)
- A Goofy Movie (1995)
- But I'm a Cheerleader (2000)
- Firebreather (2010)
- The Perfect Weapon (1991)
- Take the Lead (2006)
- Biker Boyz (2003)
- Jarhead 3: The Siege (2016)
- Bad Ass 2: Bad Asses (2014)
- Monster Hunter: Legends of the Guild (2021)
- Fist of the North Star (1995)
- JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time (2014)
- Cradle (2016)
- Fakin' Da Funk (1997)
TV (20)
- The Legend of Korra (2012)
- Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005)
- Star Wars Rebels (2014)
- Moesha (1996)
- Marvel's Ultimate Spider-Man (2012)
- Victor and Valentino (2019)
- Hangin' with Mr. Cooper (1992)
- Undressed (1999)
- American Dragon: Jake Long (2005)
- Generator Rex (2010)
- The Proud Family (2001)
- Promised Land (1996)
- Almost Paradise (2020)
- The Chronicle (2001)
- Camp Camp (2016)
- Trese (2021)
- Raven (1992)
- My Dad the Rock Star (2003)
- Fan Service (2016)
- Star Wars Galaxy of Adventures (2018)
Where to start with Dante Basco
There is only one answer here and it is Avatar: The Last Airbender. Zuko is a large part of why that series gets taken seriously by adults, and the performance is doing most of the work: every line arrives with the defensiveness of someone who expects to be told he has failed again.
Then Hook, for the artifact and because Rufio is genuinely well played under all the hairspray. The Legend of Korra puts him back in the same world as a different character, and hearing that voice settled and grown up is a strange, lovely thing. American Dragon: Jake Long is the lead he never got in live action. But I'm a Cheerleader is the best film on his list with no animation in it, and Trese is the recent one worth your time. Biker Boyz and Blood and Bone are for the curious only.
The Avatar voice work
Zuko is one of the best-written redemption arcs in television and he carries every stage of it, from petulant to broken to decent. Korra brings the character back decades older and he plays the difference.
Hook and the film work
Rufio is the role people shout at him in the street and he has been gracious about it for thirty-five years. But I'm a Cheerleader is the cult film and the best of the live-action work.
The rest
The long tail of animation and nineties television. Trese is the recent Filipino series and the most personally meaningful of them, and the rest is the steady voice work that fills a career like this.