Dante Basco Quotes

Dante Basco

Profession : Actor

Birth : August 29, 1975

My brothers and I came to L.A. as break-dancers when I was about 10, and by the time I was 15, I was working on this really big movie, with Steven Spielberg and Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams.

Dante Basco

Starting out so young meant missing out on a lot of things that kids do, that your friends are doing, whether it was playing team sports or school dances with friends. I remember having fights with my mother when I was young about 'Why can't I just go have frozen yogurt with my friends after school and go hit on the girls at the library?'

Dante Basco

I come from a traditional media generation, you know? I'm like the last generation of that. And so the whole world has changed, ultimately. Coming into social media, Twitter, Facebook - I mean, the first social media I ever had was Tumblr.

Dante Basco

I mean, he's one of the greatest characters I've gotten to play over my career, so there's a little bit of me in Zuko and a little bit of Zuko in me.

Dante Basco

I guess my voice is more recognizable than I know!

Dante Basco

After 'Hook,' it was so sad for all of us to watch the set get destroyed. We were at the end of 'Hook,' and we're walking off the Sony lot and we're literally seeing the boat get destroyed. That was the sad thing, seeing that go.

Dante Basco

I kind of got popular as a spoken word artist, and I ended up doing some ads and audio stuff for Nike and Sprite.

Dante Basco

I came up in the '80s and '90s - there was no engagement with the fan base.

Dante Basco

Working with Robin Williams, and Bob Hopkins, and Dustin Hoffman and you're talking about 'gods,' really, in our industry. You look at legends everyday. It was so impactful to me as a young artist.

Dante Basco

For me, my first fandom was 'Star Wars.'

Dante Basco

I think it's one of the coolest things especially as a young actor, actually at any time - even doing my stuff with Avatar - merchandising, video games come out and action figures and plushie toys. It really ignites the kid in you.

Dante Basco

As far as geek culture, I didn't grow up in the comic con geek culture lane, then I started doing Comic Cons seeing the impact of it. The character, Rufio living on.

Dante Basco

It's illegal to hire or fire anybody because of their race, appearance, or sexual orientation, but in Hollywood, ironically, it's the reason people will hire or not hire you.

Dante Basco

Depictions of race have changed so much since, like, the '50s, where white people just played every race. But the pendulum swings both ways: I'm Filipino-American. If I had to wait for a Filipino role to come out to get work, I couldn't eat. There are barely any roles out there.

Dante Basco

I love being part of the 'Avatar' family.

Dante Basco

I am a California Kid.

Dante Basco

In Hollywood, I was never restricted to just one Asian character. I've been cast as a Chinese, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Japanese and a Cambodian.

Dante Basco

'Dead Poets Society' was a very influential film on me and so talking about that movie with him, he just inspired me to continue writing poetry and we talked a lot about our favourite poets. My wrap present from Robin was a beautiful limited edition copy of Walt Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass' and that's a great memory for me.

Dante Basco

Some people have such strong memories of me as a young actor, that it's hard to see me as anything else.

Dante Basco

The most fascinating thing for me is that 'Peter Pan' is a fairy tale, but now, this Filipino kid is a part of the folklore. Can you imagine telling the story of 'Sleeping Beauty' or 'Cinderella,' and all of a sudden there's a Filipino kid in there after all these years?

Dante Basco