Touchdown a serious position in a super-sized Steven Spielberg spectacle at solely 15 years outdated is irritating sufficient. Simply think about how way more irritating it might be if one of many stars of stated film appears to hate your guts. That is the place Dante Basco discovered himself in on the set of Spielberg’s Peter Pan sequel, Hook, which premiered in theaters 30 years in the past, on Dec. 11, 1990. The Filipino-American actor was solid as Rufio, the brand new chief of the Misplaced Boys, who alternately clashes with a grown-up Peter (performed by Robin Williams) and the eternally outdated — and irrevocably evil — Captain James Hook (Dustin Hoffman).
And as Basco tells Yahoo Leisure, Hoffman was fairly evil to him all through the primary few weeks of manufacturing. “There was a very long time the place he was very adversarial to me — very adversarial,” the now 46-year-old actor reveals. “And I keep in mind going: ‘I am wired! This man is Dustin Hoffman. Why is he in my ear being very adversarial!’ He would say issues, and I might be like, ‘Why would you say that to me? I am simply making an attempt to be a great little actor.'” (Watch our video interview above.)
Ultimately, Basco’s appearing coach on the time defined to the distraught teenager that there was a technique to Hoffman’s insanity: particularly that The Graduate star was a Methodology actor. “My coach stated, ‘He is Captain Hook, and also you’re Rufio. You are his adversary, and he is setting that dynamic up proper now in order that when it is time to do scenes with you, he isn’t going to mess around. He is severe, ?'”
Basco’s coach additionally gave his pupil the key for circumnavigating Hoffman’s Methodology taunts — unleash his inside film nerd. “He stated, ‘Do what James Dean did with Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando: he may simply observe them round and his them questions.’ So I might be on set [with Dustin] and say, ‘I simply watched Lenny final night time,’ or I might begin speaking about Midnight Cowboy and he’d begin me and understanding, ‘Oh, this child’s an actor!'”
Certain sufficient, Basco’s strategy paid off. When the time got here for him to movie Rufio’s large dying scene, he turned to his former offscreen adversary (and onscreen killer) for assist. “He grew to become my appearing coach for these days on set,” he remembers now. “We actually filmed it for like two or three days, and he was there on a regular basis directing me by way of the dying scene. Once you get to behave that intimately with considered one of your heroes, it is phenomenal.”
And this is the even crazier factor: Rufio virtually did not die. In response to Basco, at one level the plan was to let the Mohawked warrior survive the ultimate battle with Captain Hook in order that he may star in a possible Misplaced Boys spin-off TV present. “We had been in contracts … and it did not undergo,” he says, including that for a very long time he wasn’t positive whether or not he successfully signed Rufio’s dying warrant by stalling on signing the TV present contract. “However years later, I talked to [Hook screenwriter] Jim V. Hart, who stated, ‘I all the time needed Rufio to die, as a result of it represented the darkness and the hazard of Neverland. To ensure that Peter Pan to go, ‘I have to get my children out of Neverland,’ there wanted to be one thing dire.”
And for the hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of thousands of younger viewers who’ve grown up with Hook, it is laborious to get extra dire than watching the swaggering Rufio die in Peter’s arms. “It freaked out a complete technology of children,” Basco says, proudly. “However I additionally suppose that is one of many issues that makes Rufio iconic. The dying of Rufio solidified him as this factor that you simply all the time keep in mind. I am a model of Bambi’s mother!”
In comparison with Hoffman, Basco says that appearing reverse Williams was a breeze. “Robin was very loving in direction of me,” he says of the late actor, remembering how they bonded over their shared love of Filipino tradition and meals. (Williams’s second spouse, Marsha Garces Williams, is an element Filipino.) “He had a means of placing his arm round you and being like, ‘Welcome to the celebration.’
Talking of events, Basco remembers Hook‘s well-known meals battle scene being an actual rager, particularly when Rufio and Peter had their iconic insult battle. “I did precisely what they wrote as a result of I am the form of actor that simply must know [my lines],” he says. Williams, then again, had a special strategy. “He would do what was scripted brilliantly. After which he’d have a look at Steven and go, ‘Can I [improvise] one line?’ After which he’d simply go!
“Once you’re appearing with him, you have just about obtained three selections,” Basco continues. “You may say your traces and then you definately get steamrolled. Or you’ll be able to attempt to improvise with him, however he is just like the Marlon Brando of improv! Otherwise you could be like, ‘I am going to let him discuss after which reduce him off.’ I attempted plenty of totally different methods, however I used to be only a 15-year-old child making an attempt to maintain up with one of many masters! However it was nice man: it is positively a memorable scene and one thing that folks wish to speak about on a regular basis. After I’m at conventions, they need me to write down these issues on Funko containers, ? Fart manufacturing unit, slug slime, cat vomit — all that stuff.”
— Video produced by Jen Kucsak and edited by Jimmie Rhee
Hook is at present streaming on Sling TV.
