Dave Bautista’s Secret; or, How Pro Wrestling Saved the Hollywood Action Hero

Once upon a time, Hollywood had a man’s man for every occasion. That time ended as Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, and even bodybuilding box-office hero Arnold Schwarzenegger faded into retirement or receded via reduced workloads. In the 1940s and 1950s, you had your pick of rock-solid leading men forged by tough military service, such as Lee Marvin, Jimmy Stewart, and Sterling Hayden, of whom the likes of ex-Marine Hackman were merely continuations into the near present. Pro wrestlers figured into this mix to an extent, with Stanislaus Zbyszko, Kola Kwariani, Hard Boiled Haggerty (Don Stansauk), “Judo” Gene LeBell, and Mike Mazurki doing admirable work as supporting players or stunt coordinators.

Through the 1970s, when leading men came from athletic backgrounds, they were generally former NFL or MLB players — Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman Chuck Connors, Browns All-Pro running back Jim Brown, Kansas City Chiefs star defensive back Fred Williamson, Rams All-Pro defensive lineman Fred Dryer. And this remained true into the 1990s, when you could find major television shows fronted by men like Bill Cosby (a halfback and track athlete at Temple University) and Ed O’Neill (briefly in camp with the Pittsburgh Steelers, unlike the failed high school gridiron star he played on Married… with Children). There was a certain solidity, and a resulting gravitas, to these men. And there were enough of them that global wrestling superstar Hulk Hogan’s own late-1980s career as a leading man was confined to underperforming films and television shows directed at children. Meanwhile, talented wrestlers like Jesse “The Body” Ventura and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper would have to content themselves with interesting supporting parts and memorable leading roles in offbeat low-budget pictures.

Now, however, the stage masculinity of the pro wrestler, which seemed cartoonish in the 1980s when set against the likes of Hackman or Eastwood, is the best of what’s around. Dave Bautista in Knock at the Cabin offers a textbook example of this: In his commitment to the aversion of an impending apocalypse, his brick wall-like body all but subsumes the ostensible leads, married couple Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge).

Former pro wrestler Bautista casts a large shadow over M. Night Shyamalan’s new film. As Leonard, a towering presence with a quiet sensibility, Bautista carries the weight of the world on his shoulders as he proceeds to terrorize a hapless couple and their daughter in order to secure the sacrifice needed to stop an impending apocalypse.

Most of the film is rote thriller stuff, but Bautista’s leading-man chops and understated delivery lend it surprising heft. It should come as no surprise that Bautista is able to emote this way — after all, he cut his teeth as the hulking “Batista” in arguably the most intense crucible for would-be action stars, the WWE, before breaking out as a bankable movie star as deadpan Drax the Destroyer in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

It is equally unsurprising that two of the biggest action stars of the modern era, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and John Cena, took their bumps and honed their microphone skills in WWE rings. The Rock, who has banked over $5 billion in worldwide box office across 27 leading roles, has succeeded by following the path of interchangeable blockbusters built around advancing his brand. Cena, by contrast, routinely plays against type: the alpha-male-as-clueless-goof, a character he debuted in a supporting turn as a closeted gay man in Amy Schumer’s comedy Trainwreck and has parlayed into a leading role on HBO’s Peacemaker

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