Quotes from 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.

I guess my voice is more recognizable than I know!

I've actually had a great career in Hollywood. I've been a working actor my whole life.

I love seeing the new generation take something that we've done and reinvent it for a whole new time.

I look for us - people of color in Hollywood, to create more stories as writers, directors and filmmakers, creating more opportunities for ethnic actors. At the end of the day, we have to be the ones giving jobs and telling the stories, not just waiting to be hired.

'Hook' became a cult classic without all the lore.

Rufio's a great iconic character for a certain generation and definitely something I'm always associated with, proud to be associated with which is cool.

'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.

Anyone who has been in this town long enough has their own 'True Hollywood story.'

I come from a big family of brothers and sisters and family dramas and honor and dishonor.

And it's ironic that in my career I've done the black shows from 'Moesha' to 'Fresh Prince' to 'Hangin' with Mr. Cooper,' and then a lot of black films like 'Biker Boyz' and 'Love Don't Cost a Thing.'

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?'

I feel like I grew up differently, when you're a child actor you grow up differently, but it's not that different than growing up as, like, a child basketball player who goes to the NBA. There are certain kids who become professionals at a very young age. There's a lot of sacrifice that goes into that.

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.

Being a Filipino actor in Hollywood, the most frustrating part of landing roles in Hollywood is definitely the limited roles available and the lack of diversity.

It's even rougher for the kids today because they have social media - it's as if they're being interviewed every moment of the day even when they're just interviewing themselves, putting out a tweet or an Instagram post.

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.

My mother always kept us involved in various types of art.

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

Within the black community, I'm definitely a neighborhood celebrity.

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

But everyone comes to Hollywood hoping to get a role people are going to remember them for, and I get girls saying I was their first crush, or Asian guys saying Rufio was the first time they saw an Asian kid on-screen that wasn't nerdy or stereotypical, so I was lucky the character that resonated was cool.

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.

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.