The questions come like clockwork every time Dane DiLiegro steps on set.
“How tall are you?” they ask the 6-foot-8 Lexington native, who transitioned to acting a half-decade ago. Or, “you should play basketball,” they tell the Los Angeles-based actor.
“Well,” he replies, “I did.”
Playing the role of a professional basketball player in Mindy Kaling’s upcoming untitled Basketball Project Netflix comedy series, the 35-year-old relishes a full-circle career opportunity. DiLiegro played professional basketball for eight years in Italy and Israel before his career change. The 44-year-old Kaling also lived in Lexington as a child.
“At this point in my career, I’d rather pretend to be a professional basketball player than actually be one — it’s a lot easier on the body,” DiLiegro told the Lexington Observer. “My two worlds coming together is really cool and exciting.
“Walking around the set, my body and mind kind of went into basketball mode… it was tough to differentiate what was the set and what was real because it seemed so real to me.”
A 2006 Lexington High School graduate, DiLiegro spent a postgraduate year at Worcester Academy before a standout Division I basketball career at the University of New Hampshire. A four-year starter for the Wildcats, DiLiegro played professional basketball from 2011-2019.
Alvin Abreu, a former roommate and basketball teammate at UNH, remembers DiLiegro’s ability to impersonate anyone on the spot. He also had a knack for drawing offensive fouls, which requires a bit of an acting job to sell the contact. Abreu said none of his UNH teammates are surprised at his success.
“That’s Dane being Dane,” said Abreu, a Lynn native. “He took a leap of faith and I’m happy the way it’s taken off for him.”
During the summer of 2019, DiLiegro, then training to continue his basketball career from Lexington, worked as a stand-in during a Boston filming of the Disney show Free Guy, and at the behest of stunt coordinator Chris O’Hara, gave acting a full-time shot. Within weeks, DiLiegro racked up opportunities. First, he took the role of Protein in the Netflix show Sweet Home. Then Xbox called with a request for DiLiegro to play Master Chief in a commercial. Appearances in American Horror Stories and a Doja Cat music video preceded a breakout role as Predator in the film Prey. Last year, he appeared in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and already starred as the antagonist in the Blumhouse film Imaginary.
According to DiLiegro’s father, Frank, Dane was “enamored with creatures, scary things, sci-fi from when he was eight years old.” Those initial acting roles make sense, but DiLiegro eyes expanding his acting portfolio. He takes acting and mime classes.
Frank and Cheryl, Dane’s mother, coined the new phrase “Dane-ing his way in.”
“He just has this innate ability to go into a room in Hollywood with some of the biggest celebrities and make friends with all of them,” Frank DiLiegro said. “Every other person in Hollywood has someone in the acting business, Dane has zero, not even an agent.”
In Kaling’s upcoming basketball project, co-written by Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen, DiLiegro plays Badrag Knauss, an eastern European hooper on the fictitious Los Angeles Waves. A legendary professional basketball franchise, the Waves appoint Isla Gordon, played by Kate Hudson, as the team’s general manager, who then navigates her way through the male-dominated industry. DiLiegro, who couldn’t give up much about the show itself, said the humor always comes through on set. He hopes it premiers by the next holiday season.
In general, acting roles that require a special skill require a reel of the actor displaying said skill. DiLiegro sent tape of himself shooting around and in-game footage from his professional career.
One of, if not the only of the show’s actors with a hoops background, DiLiegro instinctively returns to his roots, like going through his old stretching routine every time he takes the practice court. Running plays with the set’s basketball coordinator (think coach) jogs his memory of his organized playing days.
“I’m not going to compare myself to Tom Cruise, but it’s like Top Gun: Maverick when he gets back in the pilot’s seat,” DiLiegro said. “It’s a real basketball court. This isn’t just a set. Everything feels real and looks real, so it’s really, really cool.”
Though he’s on the west coast full-time, DiLiegro makes it home to Lexington or his family’s place on Cape Cod every August for he and his brother Ross’s birthday and either Christmas or Thanksgiving. A dozen or so of his LHS classmates, including Boston Celtics assistant coach Matt Reynolds, keep a lively group text going filled with updates on dad life, marriages and home ownership. DiLiegro is “none of those” but enjoys following along nonetheless.
Kaling and DiLiegro bonded over their shared experience attending Fiske Elementary School, though she only went there for a year. Kaling is friends with actress Rachel Dratch, another former Lexingtonian who was a neighbor of the DiLiegro family.
“Mindy’s incredible,” DiLiegro said. “She has this aura to her. She’s just really, really, really smart.”
When DiLiegro walks around in his everyday life, no one asks him if he’s an actor. Just like when on set, they ask if he plays a sport.
“I used to play basketball but I retired five years ago so I’m washed up now,” DiLiegro said. “People usually laugh at that.”
I really enjoyed this article. I knew Dane As a child from school, I was one of his teachers and I couldn’t be more proud of him. I just saw his parents the other day and all we could talk about where the kids so proud of you Dane congratulations!!