Dave Bautista recently told Collider that he’s no longer going to work with assholes because it’s “absolutely awful,” and he’s fortunately hit a threshold in his acting career where he can be choosier about the projects he takes on and the actors who become his co-stars.
“I’m just at the age and at the point of my life where life’s just too goddamn short,” Bautista said. “I want to work with people I just love and respect, because I love this business. I love filmmaking, and if people don’t want to be there, I don’t want to be there with them. You know?”
“I’m happy to be there. It’s a love thing for me, and I’m passionate about it,” Bautista added. “I want to be there, and I want to make the most of it, so I don’t want to hear people bitching, complaining, moaning, and groaning about doing something that we’re all fortunate enough to be doing and making.”
Bautista has long been candid about his desire to diversify his acting filmography and branch out far beyond his breakthrough role as Drax the Destroyer in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy. He’s even lost weight to gain access to a larger pool of acting roles.
“I started trimming down because I got really big for a role. Uncomfortably big,” Bautista said last year. “For ‘Knock at the Cabin’ I got really big. I was around 315 pounds…I put the weight on really fast and I put on an uncomfortable amount of weight and it took forever to shed it out.”
“The more I trimmed down the better I looked on camera and the better I looked next to other actors,” he explained. “I’m still a large human being. At 6’4 and 240 pounds next to your typical actor, I look like a gorilla and it’s distracting. I’ll probably lose a few more pounds. I’m just killing myself to be this trim. I’m training hard.”
Bautista told GQ magazine around the same time that “I just want to be a good fucking actor. A respected actor.” For this reason, he’s always cherished his collaborations with Denis Villeneuve, such as “Blade Runner 2049” and the “Dune” films.
“I’ve never had a director until Denis, since Denis, say to me that you’re a very strong actor,” Bautista told Gizmodo last year. “And he said this to me on the first film. I was holding back because I was self-conscious [and] I was. I was very unsure of myself. And he came to me. He said, ‘I feel like you’re holding back. You’re a very strong actor, my friend. Just follow your instincts.’ And so I started belting it out, and I started finding this character. He not only loved it so much, but he was so supportive of my performance that he wanted to capture other people’s reactions to my performance. And so when you’re getting that kind of support, that was an experience I’ve never had before or since, with a director of that caliber. So it means everything. It’s validation.”
Bautista currently stars in “Afterburn,” now playing in theaters. His upcoming credits include the action thriller “Trap House,” the indie science-fiction movie “Alpha Gang” and a voice role in “The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender.”
