Bautista chasing goal of being ‘respected actor’
Star says he still has something to prove to himself, others
On screen, he’s the center of attention, a hulking mass with a bodybuilder’s physique and an air of cool mystique surrounding him. He can play quiet and brooding or loud and boisterous, and either way it’s difficult to take your eyes off whatever he’s doing when the camera’s rolling.
Off screen, Dave Bautista says he’s unassuming and even a bit shy, and it has been a long road learning to accept himself and feel at home in his own skin.
“There was a time in my life, like kinda into my 40s, when I just became comfortable with being uncomfortable,” he says.
Over the last decade, he has built up an impressive resume of roles, working with directors such as Sam Mendes (“Spectre”), Zack Snyder (“Army of the Dead”), M. Night Shyamalan (“Knock at the Cabin”) and Rian Johnson (“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”).
He also played Drax the Destroyer in three “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies (as well as a pair of “Avengers” titles), and is now on screen in the blockbuster “Dune: Part Two.” It’s his third pairing with A-list director Denis Villeneuve, whom he credits with elevating his acting chops, as well as his ambitions.
“I originally started pursuing acting because I realized what a bad actor I was,” says Bautista, 55.
He got into it after kicking around World Wrestling Entertainment, where he wrestled as Batista, “The Animal,” beginning in 2002. He collected 10 championship titles during his time with WWE, but he had a ways to go before transitioning his in-ring accomplishments to big-screen success.
Early on in his acting career, he appeared in a movie “strictly as a favor to a friend,” he says, and the experience left such a bad taste in his mouth that he had to wash it out.
“I went, and I did this film, and I thought it was going to be easy, and as I
was doing it, I was mortified at how bad I was,” he says. “I was embarrassed, and I left that film feeling so unsatisfied that I wanted to prove it to myself that I could be better.”
That began a long journey for Bautista, which continues to this day.
He grew up poor in a rough neighborhood in Washington, D.C., and he had to fight to stay out of trouble, a fight he didn’t always win.
Back then Hollywood was another world altogether,
several planes removed from his own, but he was always captivated by movies.
“I remember going to double and triple features, and just sitting in the movies all day,” he says of his childhood fascination with cinema. He remembers going to see Disney features such as “The Rescuers” and “The Love Bug,” along with “Jaws.” In 1977, “‘Star Wars’ changed my life,” he says.
He had no avenue toward movies outside of being a
spectator. He found himself pulled toward bodybuilding, where he bulked and toned his 6-foot-4-inch frame, which eventually led to wrestling, where he learned the art of storytelling, albeit via body slams and suplexes. “Professional wrestling is really a physical form of storytelling,” says Bautista. “I refer to it as a ‘theater of violence,’ and I wanted to carry that over into this business that I loved and I’ve been obsessed with since I’ve been a child.”
While he could perform in front of thousands in the ring, outside the ring he was timid and unsure of himself, and he suffered from social anxiety.
“I grew up an introverted, kind of shy person, and for a long time, I hadn’t learned that it was OK to be awkward and uncomfortable, because everybody expected me to be this cool guy that I was on TV,” he says.
But as much as he tried, he just wasn’t that guy, and eventually he became OK with not being the superstar, 1,000-watt spotlight at the center of every room.
That only came with age. “I started being comfortable with myself,” he says. “I learned a way to turn my faults into strengths, and I learned how to make it work for me. And I came to the realization that they weren’t faults, it’s just who I am. It may not be everybody else’s standard, but I’ve found over the years that a lot of people feel the same way. I’m always pleasantly surprised that a lot of people share the same anxieties that I do.”
That’s true for some big-name actors that he has met as well, he says. And as he has learned to accept himself, Bautista says the more he loosens up — both in life and in his work — the more positive the results.
When he decided to lean all the way into acting in 2010, Bautista left WWE behind to pursue his goal.
While he landed roles in films like RZA’s “The Man With the Iron Fists” (2012) and the “Pitch Black” entry “Riddick” (2013), he wasn’t sure how far he could take his acting career, and his bank account was quickly drying up. That’s when he got his shot at “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which “completely changed my life,” Bautista says.
The role of Drax, the blockheaded behemoth of the “Guardians” franchise, showed he was more than just muscle, he also had swift comic timing and a dry wit. He received raves for his performance, and afterward he took full advantage of the opportunities it afforded, embarking on what he calls a “purpose-driven” mission to seek “deeper, more meaningful” roles, and getting “very picky and choosy” about the directors he worked with.
One of the filmmakers he sought out was Villeneuve, the French Canadian filmmaker who was becoming, along with Christopher Nolan, the go-to guy for cerebral blockbusters.
Villeneuve was working on “Blade Runner 2049” at the time, and producers liked Bautista for the role of Sapper Morton, a replicant living in exile outside of
Los Angeles. Bautista was “crushed,” he says, when Villeneuve told him he was all wrong for the character.
Meanwhile, producers still had faith in him, and he did makeup, costume and screen tests for the role. Finally after the screen test, Villeneuve was won over, and he awarded him the part, and it was working with Villeneuve that changed Bautista’s outlook on acting, he says.
“When I would talk to people, that role — and it’s a very small role — kept coming up over and over and over, because it allowed people to see me in a different light,” Bautista says. “It’s not only that the character was so layered, but Denis was the first director to completely strip away my physicality, which allowed me to completely rely on my acting ability. People saw that, and they recognized that, and it just opened up doors for me.”
One of those doors was a revolving one with Villeneuve, who cast Bautista as Glossu Rabban, a darkly vicious character in the “Dune” saga. For Bautista, the part is another step toward his goal, and he’s putting in the work to get where he ultimately wants to see himself.
“I never set out to be a movie star, I set out to be an actor,” says the father of three. “My end goal is to be a respected actor, and I’m still chasing that. I still have that strong desire to really prove, not only to everyone else but to myself, that I can be a great actor.”
He welcomes the professional success now that he has a better understanding of himself away from the screen — both who he is, and who he isn’t.
“All these things made me who I am today,” Bautista says. “And who I am today, I’m content with.”