Ru! Fi! Oooooooooooooooo!Dante Basco is one of the few prominent American celebrities of Filipino heritage. He is the brother of Darion Basco, Derek Basco, Dion Basco and Ariana 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 a substantial role in
Steven Spielberg's 1991 film
Hook with
Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman, as Rufio, the charismatic red-stripe-haired leader of the Lost Boys. Less famously, he would go on to portray
Bat in the live-action
Fist Of The North Star movie.
He portrayed characters of
different Asian ethnicities which were not Filipino. He did however, star in the independent film
The Debut, in which he portrayed a Filipino-American alongside his three brothers and sister.
More recently, he has provided the voices for Prince Zuko in
Avatar The Last Airbender and Jake Long in
American Dragon Jake Long, and
Iroh II in
The Legend of Korra. He starred as Ramos in the 2006 film
Take The Lead alongside
Antonio Banderas, where he break-danced as well as performed ballroom dance. This wasn't the only film in which he was required to dance. In many films he hip-hop dances, just as he did in a Verizon Wireless commercial as well as rapping and breaking in a Sprite commercial. He also leads a
rap/rock fusion band, the Basco Brothers,
made up of him and his siblings.
He began to read
Homestuck in February, 2012. He was rather amused at the fact that the character Rufio is quite involved in the story, and
Andrew Hussie made him even
more involved after Dante began reading, effectively creating a new character just to imitate him.