There’s some debate out there among wrestling fans as to who the best wrestler-turned-actor of all-time is. ? Obviously, Dwayne Johnson is right there and the biggest star by far. John Cena’s pretty close. Hulk Hogan? Roddy Piper? But for my money, the best is easily Dave Bautista. It was his role as Drax the Destroyer in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy that put his career on rocket fuel, but he’s proven with a number of accomplished dramatic performances that he can do it all.
Bautista has been eager to move on from Marvel for a while now, and with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 looking like his swan song as Drax, the actor is feeling a sense of “relief” about it. He told GQ…
“I’m so grateful for Drax. I love him,” Bautista said. “But there’s a relief [that it’s over]. It wasn’t all pleasant. It was hard playing that role. The makeup process was beating me down. And I just don’t know if I want Drax to be my legacy—it’s a silly performance, and I want to do more dramatic stuff.”
Bautista can be seen right now in Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and soon he’ll be in M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock At the Cabin and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two. Directors are eager to work with Bautista, making him one of the busiest actors around. But Bautista doesn’t want to do just anything. He wants to prove himself the best…
“If I could be a number one [on the callsheet] with Denis, I would do it for fucking free,” Bautista said. “I think that’s how I could find out how good I could be. He brings out the best in me. He sees me in a different light, sees the performer that I want to be. That might be how I solve the puzzle.”
I’m pretty sure Bautista will have a role in James Gunn’s DC Universe before the year is up. Seems like a natural move.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 opens May 5th.