Photo: YouTube
RUFI-O, RUFI-OOOOO!
By Rebecca Jane Stokes — Written on May 11, 2020
Growing up, Hook was one of my favorite movies. I watched it easily eight hundred times.
To me, it was the perfect story, a Peter Pan whose fear of death essentially made him mortal is forced to return to his Neverland and fight for the children he lost and the child he once was.
It's hard to believe that it has been 25 years since the movie first hit theaters.
It's harder still to reconcile the fact that the gifted comic and actor who was so perfectly cast as Pan himself, Robin Williams, is no longer with us.
His family and fans aren't the only ones who mourn his loss, his Lost Boys miss him too, though, they aren't exactly boys anymore.
Actor Dante Basco, who played the rebellious lost boys leader Rufio in the film, recently shared a series of photos taken to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the movie, and in honor of the late great Williams himself.
The photos were touching enough to make my tear up at my desk (and by desk I mean the reclining leather arm chair where I do most of my work) and the other half just made me feel roughly 100 years old.
It's nostalgia at its most bitter sweet and it has to be seen to be believed.
Here's the cast now in costume pictured alongside themselves in the movie 25 years ago.
I, like Dante Basco himself, cannot believe that they talked this grown-ass man back into wearing a midriff baring top ... and that he STILL LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME. Dante, what witch did you sell your soul to, and is she still buying?
Raushaun Hammond played Thud Butts, the touching lost boy whose happy thought being of his mother. I literally cannot keep typing about this beautiful soul or I WILL DEVOLVE INTO A BUCKET OF TEARS YOU GUYS. He's still got that wonderful sparkle in his eyes.
James Madio played Don't Ask, the most well-dressed of the lost boys, who was ahead of his time with his feather hair piece. Fun fact, as a youth I absolutely thought his character was named Donuts.
If you told me back in the day that as an adult woman I would "swipe right" as it were on the actor who played Pockets, I would have laughed at you. But here we are. OH THERE YOU ARE, ISAIAH ROBINSON.
Thomas Tulak played Too Small, the youngest of the Lost Boys, and arguably the best at naturally rocking freckles. Let's hope he's got his blowing-out game squared away these days.
Brian and Brett Willis played the nameless but totally memorable twins in the flick. Though they gave up acting, they've led interesting lives becoming firefighters and dead ringers for young Joe Pescis.
Thanks so much for the memories, Lost Boys!