Steven Spielberg's Hook is widely considered to be one of his best works and, for many, is the only true sequel to Peter Pan. Among other allocated, it has potentially even been one of Robin William's best performances of his career, playing the high flying hero Peter Pan.
However, one of the star out performances of the film, which has been on par in iconography with William's Pan and Hoffman's Hook, has been then-newcomer Dante Basco's role as leader of the lost boys; Rufio. In the film, he and Robin Williams share many scenes as they compete to see who will continue to lead the lost boys against the tyranny of Captain Hook.
Being one of his first movies, Basco stole the show with his performance and has since led a prosperous career as both a live-action and voice actor, lending his voice to Prince Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender and A Goofy Movie; and most recently in live-action with the Twitch series, Artificial: Remote Intelligence.
We were recently able to speak with Basco on Comic Book Movie about his role on the Twitch series and his Hook spin-off Bangarang. Give it a look below and don't forget to listen to the full audio interview after at the end.
Joe: I was chatting with my friend Noah, and he had told me a little bit about a short film you had done called Bangarang which is a prequel for Rufio. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Dante Basco: Oh yeah! I was approached by some filmmakers, Jonah Feingold, who is a USC Grad with his production team. He grew up with Hook and it's one of his favorite films so we met at a club in Los Angelos and he pitched me the full short and I said let's collaborate and do it! So we raised some money for it and it actually went viral so now there are some things in the works for the development and finishing a Rufio origin story.
Joe: That's awesome man, everyone loves Rufio!
Dante Basco: Yeah man, if we can get that off the ground, that'll be awesome. I think people will be pretty excited about it.
Joe: Yeah, definitely. I think Rufio is the perfect entry point to revive this franchise for a younger generation.
Dante Basco: Totally.
Joe: Now we had talked a little before about how Robin Williams helped you get into poetry. I was curious about the scene where the two of you traded insults back and forth and whether that was off-the-cuff or if it was scripted? And how many takes did it take?
Dante Basco: It was scripted! I don't remember all the takes with it being so long ago, but it was definitely a full day's work. It was scripted, but you know with the way Robin is, he's really like the godfather of improv for film and television, at least at that time he was one of the pioneers doing all of that. So we had to be on our toes to do the scripted version and then to just roll with it and keep up with someone who has such world renown, you know, he was one of the greats.
Joe: Sure, and speaking of greats, what was it like to act under Steven Speilberg at such a young age?
Dante Basco: Yeah, I mean, again, I was very fortunate to be amongst some of the literal legends and gods of our industry and I didn't take it lightly you know? I was fifteen at the time and I had been studying since I was ten so I knew who all of those people were and I was a huge fan of things like E.T. and Close Encounters and so many things, especially with Robin Williams. So many things were going on and I was there watching. And you know, with Dustin Hoffman being one of the greats, I would just come to set on my days off in order to study and watch the greats work.
Joe: And your hard work definitely paid off. Which would you say you get recognized for more, Rufio or Prince Zuko?
Dante Basco: Thanks man. It's a generational thing. I think for my whole life I've been "Rufio" to the world at large longer than I haven't been. So I can get into Bangarang chats any day of the week and I think a lot of people recognize me as Rufio, as a "90's baby". And then the newer generation that knows me as Prince Zuko is kind of a phenomenon that happened 15 years later, so honestly it's kind of even depending on where I'm at and the generation of people that I'm around.
Joe: Do you feel like you get cast in these hothead roles like Rufio and Zuko?
Dante Basco: To a degree, you know. I've been in all kinds of roles over the last thirty years but I'm usually cast as a hot head guy or a rival to whoever the hero may be. I guess my more popular roles from when I was a kid are the hotheaded bad boy roles like Rufio and Zuko.
What do you guys think of these comments from Dante Basco? We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below, and don't forget to listen to the full interview on LiteraryJoe's Inner Child Podcast!
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Artificial is a Live and Interactive Science Fiction series where the audience changes the story. It is the first original sci-fi series on Twitch and was the winner of the 2019 Primetime Emmy Award for Innovation in Interactive Media.
Artificial: Remote Intelligence airs at 5 pm PST/8 pm PST every Thursday. You can catch the previous worldbuilding episode here.