Former WWE World Champion and star of the current box office hit, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 2,’ Dave Bautista was today’s guest on the ‘Talk is Jericho’ podcast with Chris Jericho, which you can listen to the entire interview at this link. Below are a few of the highlights from the podcast:
On Having a Niche in Hollywood and Possibly Retiring from Acting:
That is what I am really trying to establish and the reason is because the more of a commodity you are, the easier it is to get stuff done. That is when you can go to Hollywood with scripts and tell them that you really would love to make this movie and then they say, yeah, we can really make some money off of that, so if you establish your name like that you are marketable and profitable to get projects done, which is where I want to be to get my own projects done and go to tell to tell them that certain scripts are great and that we should do them whether I am in it or not. I really want to do more behind the scenes and really considering retirement now. I don’t believe there is a huge window left for me in acting because, at the end of the day, the way I am built and the way that I look is just going to limit me as I am aging and it will limit me even more. I have established myself in great acting roles, and some of the stuff is still going to come out that now I am just more well-rounded and people will bring me on for bigger projects. The offers I am now starting to get, getting offers such as roles acting alongside Jodie Foster, something like that, because I really don’t want to keep playing the big musclehead ex-wrestler, I want them to say that I can really pull this character off and can make money off of.
On How much He Has Grown as an Actor Since the First Guardians of the Galaxy:
Tremendously and it is one of those things where I am an on-the-job learning actor. I haven’t had the luxury to attend drama school and all that stuff, so I am learning as we go. Every project I do I get better, so it’s really just throughout the years that I have grown as an actor. Every job I have done I take away something from it, even if they weren’t the best projects, I put myself out in front of really great actors, even going back to the beginning I was always smart with that where in the beginning I did a movie called, ‘House of the Rising Sun.’ The reason why I thought this movie would be a great experience was because I worked with an actor named Dominic Purcell, this was really early in my career. He gave me advice that I am still using till this day throughout my career. When I first started he told me to focus on my breathing because sometimes I am just saying the words and I am not thinking when I am saying them. He said that I am always going to be in different settings and if I am stressed I am always going to be breathing differently because they shoot everything out of sequence so if you focus on your breathing that will add a different element to the scene to your performance and I still do that all the time, so I always think about that. This was 2010 when I did this movie and I still always utilize that.
On Guardians of the Galaxy 2:
It’s funny. I thought that they were going to go in a different route with Drax. I thought he was going to be a little more of bad a**, instead, they went the other way. It’s almost like an 80% straight comedy role for me, which is why the character really works. I believe James Gunn just really tuned into the first one. He loves writing for Drax and he will do it as we are filming to say certain things while we are filming. He loves writing for Drax and picked up on that. I do a lot more action in Avengers, which I will be in playing Drax. There’s more action for me in that movie. There’s always going to be that funny version of Drax because people enjoy it, it’s entertaining but there’s definitely more going on in Avengers. I have already filmed part 1. Infinity Wars is going to be in two parts. The permanent Avengers will be in the film, but they are adding so many new characters in this because they are introducing other characters like they did in Captain America bringing in Spider-Man, but they are going to start heading into different phases of Marvel so they are introducing other characters. They are going to have a whole series with Black Panther, but Spider-Man is the one I am really looking forward to because I love that kid, Tom Holland and I love that they are staying true with the comics with this whole series because Marvel Studios has gotten more involved. I think before it was Sony, but Marvel took it back. I think they are doing a partnership now, but I think Sony is going to reacquire Spider-Man but I’m not sure, but right now they are doing a partnership so Marvel Studios is involved.
On His Favorite WrestleMania Moments:
My favorite WrestleMania match of all-time was against The Undertaker. He was still undefeated, but I felt that in that one I came to my own, nobody carried me in that match. With my first main event with Hunter [Triple H], Hunter carried me throughout the entire match. I wasn’t ready to carry a match by myself. It was a huge money-making match and I have to give all the credit in that match with Hunter to Triple H because of the way he told the story, built the match and put me over and put the title on me it was all on him. As soon as we had stumbled on to have some money to be made where people saw that I was going to turn on Triple H or Triple H was going to turn on me people were losing their minds. Vince [McMahon] wanted to book that match next week and Hunter was like, not a chance, no, we are going to milk this and ride it out and take it all the way to WrestleMania.
