Dave Bautista Once Snubbed Films With Easy Pay Days to Be Considered a Serious Actor
Marvel star and actor Dave Bautista’s road to success wasn’t easy before being cast in Guardians of the Galaxy. Bautista found himself making some rather risky decisions in the beginning of his career for the sake of his craft.
Dave Bautista received valuable advice from Stone Cold Steve Austin about making it in Hollywood
Bautista displayed a lot of patience and faith in himself when embarking on his Hollywood career. Although he made a lot of money from his days in the WWE, when he left wrestling he had to rebuild himself from scratch. Especially since eventually Bautista would lose the money he’d earned from his sports entertainment days.
“After wrestling, I went broke,” he once said on Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast. “I left wrestling, it was three years that I barely worked. I got hit a little from the IRS, and just went broke. So I just had to start all over again.”
But his acting career didn’t flourish overnight, which was what Bautista might have more or less expected. Fellow wrestler and WWE legend Stone Cold Steve Austin gave Bautista some sage advice in regards to the film industry. Austin’s filmography wasn’t as prolific as Dwayne Johnson’s and John Cena’s, but there was a time when Austin featured in a few notable movies. According to IMDb, Austin had significant parts in films like The Condemned, Longest Yard, The Expendables, and a few others.
Given that Austin wasn’t new to the trappings of the film industry, he gave Bautista a helpful tip about becoming an actor.
“Before I left WWE, [Steve] pulled me aside and said, ‘You’re going to get offers for horrible scripts. The money will be tempting. Don’t get caught in that trap,'” Bautista recalled in an interview with GQ.
Dave Bautista turned down roles to be considered as a serious actor
Austin’s advice might have played a part in Bautista making careful decisions regarding his career. The Dune star had a difficult time finding acting work after his departure from WWE, but work was finding him. Unfortunately, however, it wasn’t the kind of work the Glass Onion star was looking forward to.
“This has not been the path of least resistance, it’s been a tough route,” Bautista said in a 2020 interview with Sports Illustrated. “I’ve really pursued roles that are the actor’s pieces, and I’ve turned down a lot of roles that would have been better suited for me as an ex-wrestler.”
Bautista wanted to avoid roles he felt would box him into a certain category of actor.
“Those are the roles most people expected me to take, but I’ve chosen to go the unexpected route to prove myself as an actor. I feel like people expect less from a wrestler-turned-actor, but I’ve always wanted to be a serious actor,” he added.
The film role that Dave Bautista felt opened doors for him as a performer wasn’t ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’
Guardians of the Galaxy may have introduced a larger audience to Bautista and given him some financial security. But there was one other film he credited for truly widening the opportunities he received as an actor. In 2017, Bautista had a minor role in the Denis Villeneuve feature Blade Runner 2049. But that minor role had large implications for Bautista.
“The small role I had in Blade Runner 2049, that’s the role that opened up so many doors for me as a performer,” Bautista said. “It helped strip away my physical appearance and offered me opportunities that relied on my acting.”
2049 gave Bautista another opportunity to showcase his versatility as a performer, which the actor hoped to be noticed for.
“I remember going into a very early audition for Guardians, and Sarah Finn, the casting director, said that [actor] Lee Pace could do anything. I remember being so blown away by that. It’s a hell of a statement, he can do anything. I knew right then that I wanted her to one day be able to say, ‘Dave Bautista, he can do anything.’ I want to be that actor, with a range that’s endless,” he added.
