Dante Basco visited Cornell University on March 13 in an event hosted by the Cornell University Program Board and the Cornell Asian Pacific Islander Student Union. Basco is well known today as the voice of the Fire Prince Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender, the titular character in American Dragon: Jake Long, Rufio in the Peter-Pan retelling Hook and Ben Mercado in The Debut. Despite this impressive resume, Basco started out small, as he shared on Friday.
“I started very young, at the very ground level of the entertainment industry: break dancing,” Basco revealed on stage in Call Auditorium. He and his brothers would take to the streets of California as street performers, and before long, Basco ended up turning his talents to acting. Describing the process, Basco stated, “You try characters out, and I was fortunate something happened to me.” That something was Hook.
Hook (1991), directed by Steven Spielberg, focuses on an adult Peter Pan (Robin Williams) returning to Neverland in order to thwart Captain Hook. 15-year-old Basco landed the role of Rufio, leader of the Lost Boys. However, what is now an iconic performance almost skipped him by. As Basco said on Friday, in the Hollywood he grew up in there would be “one Asian role for every 100 plus white roles.” Basco shared that the role of Rufio originally went to a white actor before being offered to him. As a Filipino-American, he stressed that Asian actors had to “steal roles” or risk not being represented at all.
However, in 2000, Basco was given the opportunity to star in a Filipino-produced film that revolved around a Filipino-American protagonist named Ben Mercado. The Debut, directed by Gene Cajayon, was special for Basco, as he was able “to put it down for my community and see my family on screen.”
In 2025, much has changed. “We are at the highest profile of being Asian in Hollywood history,” Basco said. Yet, there is still unfinished business. Basco described what needs to be done for Asian representation on screen and urged the audience: “We need to keep creating art, keep funding. We have to create the soil. … It’s time to pay it forward to the next generation.” Basco shared that he created Kinetic Films, a production company aimed at building bridges between the film industry in Asia and America. One of the most touching moments from the evening was Basco telling the story of seeing someone dressed as Rufio at a Disney theme park. That was the moment he realized that the Asian American community had “infiltrated Peter Pan” and Hollywood. “The magic of Hollywood is that someone … is representing this little brown kid.”
Basco’s popularity has grown momentously in the past 20 years, especially with the revival of interest in Avatar: The Last Airbender and its successor, The Legend of Korra. Yet, when he first auditioned for the role of Zuko, he thought, “What’s this?” and assumed it would never make the air. “20 years later, seeing how it impacted an entire generation … it’s so cool,” Basco revealed. An entire segment of the show on Friday centered on rapid-fire questions based on Basco’s involvement in the hit Nickelodeon show. The audience learned that his favorite episode is “The Firebending Masters” from season three, when Zuko and Aang learn an ancient Firebending technique. Additionally, Basco is “the captain of the Zutara ship.” Zutara is a popular fan theory that Zuko and Katara, a Waterbender, should have formed a romantic relationship, and Basco is all here for it.
Jokes aside, Basco stressed that he was grateful to have been a part of a show that has impacted so many people. “I love Zuko, because it’s such an incredible story that has meant so much to so many people,” he stated. Today, students around the country walk around their college campuses in Zuko merch, his costume is donned every Halloween and the character’s famous “That’s rough, buddy” line bounces around the internet. Despite this immense popularity, Basco stated that, for him, it was less about the attention and more about putting one’s efforts into making a great story. In giving advice to the next generation of voice actors and film-producers, Basco performed a piece of slam-poetry on stage, in which he recited, “You should want to be good more than you want to be famous.”
We have all come to know Dante Basco in different ways. Some of us crowded around televisions with our siblings in order to follow the redemptive arc of Prince Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Some of us became obsessed with his performance in cult classic But I’m a Cheerleader. However we have learned of this phenomenal artist, one thing is clear: The stories he has helped tell will continue to inspire and awe viewers for generations to come. Perhaps even sometime soon, Basco will walk across another auditorium stage and offer up a familiar, “Hello, Zuko here.”
Jane Locke is a member of the Class of 2028 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a staff writer for the Arts & Culture department and can be reached at jlocke@cornellsun.com.
