By Denny Directo
(CBS NEWS) – Bangarang! It’s been 25 years since Robin Williams flew onto the silver screen as Peter Pan in Hook. To mark the occasion, the original Lost Boys reunited for the first time ever, returning to Neverland for an epic throwback photo shoot. Only ET was behind-the-scenes for the nostalgic reunion.
“We haven’t seen each other in quite some time but I almost feel like there was no lost time,” James Madio (“Don’t Ask”) shared with ET’s Denny Directo. “We just picked it up right away where we were and just reminiscing about everything. It’s just really cool.”
The young stars ranged from six to 17 years old during filming, and for many of them it was their first acting role ever. The massive practical sets that director Steven Spielberg had built on the Sony Pictures lot proved to be one big playground for these young actors.
“I had no idea the gravity of what was going on,” Thomas Tulak (“Too Small”), who was the youngest of the bunch, admitted. “I was just playing around, you know.”
Brian Pocrass, CEO/Producer of 22 Vision, the production company behind recent cast reunions for The Little Rascals and School of Rock, has spent the past two years trying to get the Lost Boys together.
“Hook is just one of those movies that people really grew up on,” he said. “To get them together to remember Robin and celebrate this milestone is something that I loved being a part of.”
“The Lost Boys” of Hook (credit: 22 Vision/ETOnline)
Pocrass and his team also recreated each of the characters’ classic looks for a throwback photoshoot 25 years in the making. For Dante Basco, that meant slipping back into the iconic feathered mohawk, ripped jeans and tights and showing off that bare midriff again as Rufio, leader of the Lost Boys.
“You have to understand, when you’re 15 and you’re doing this Steven Spielberg movie with megastars– Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, Julia Roberts– you know you want to be cool,” Basco laments. “I don’t know how cool I’m going to look with my belly button out!”
“I mean, through the months it grew on me and now, I mean, years later it’s become this iconic, iconic look that people cosplay around the world.”
But the reunion offered the guys way more than a trip down memory lane, it was also a chance to pay tribute to their late co-star, Robin Williams. This week marks the second anniversary of Williams’ death.
“I think for all of us [Robin’s death] was the death of our childhood,” Basco said of the loss. “There’s sadness there, also there’s a lot of space to kinda celebrate one of the most legendary artists of our time.”
“[Robin] really taught me at a young age what it means to be a star, what it means to be a leader on a set,” he continued. “Everything you want Robin Williams to be he delivered in spades.”
“He kept the set very alive,” Madio added. “He made sure that he had a relationship with each and every one of us.”
“It was like his mission to make sure everyone around him is happy and laughing all the time,” Tulak shared.
“That’s what I think his power was: his reach and being able to make anybody– even through a television screen or a movie screen– make you feel so great,” Ryan Francis (“Young Peter Pan”) added.
When asked if there is anything they wish they could have told Robin before he passed, the group offered a resounding “thank you” to the man who clearly made an important impact on their lives.
“Every cloud has a silver lining,” Isaiah Robinson (“Pockets”) offered. “For me personally as someone who has kinda avoided the film, his passing has really help me to begin to come to terms and [I] began to really embrace what a great thing it is that we all were part of.”
“A lot of the things we became, all these years later, are directly because of him.”
Watch the video above to hear more from the cast and their memories with Robin on Hook. Find out with the cast has been up to since 1991 at ETOnline.com
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