Dave Bautista is and has been many things during his life and career; car thief, petty criminal, bouncer, lifeguard, bodybuilder, grandfather, professional wrestler, MMA fighter and now a movie star, but one of the major reasons why he’s so popular is his authenticity.
The 52 year-old always shoots from the hip and tells it straight, whether it be dismissing his former WWE cohorts John Cena and Dwayne Johnson’s chosen paths in Hollywood, or threatening to quit the Marvel Cinematic Universe if James Gunn wasn’t rehired to direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Denis Villenueve’s Dune vindicated Bautista’s decision to walk away from the squared circle, and in a new interview with ABC News, he also revealed how he viewed the sci-fi epic as a blessing after spending his MCU tenure largely pigeonholed as the muscular comic relief.
“The thing with this character was it just gave me an opportunity to showcase a different type of performance. And that’s what I really love about working with Denis, I get an opportunity to show myself as a performer in a different light. … I’m not just a guy in Guardians walking around shirtless and saying stupid sh*t. The role really just gives me the opportunity to just play these like really, really deep characters. So that’s a blessing.”
Bautista’s Glossu Rabban didn’t have the most substantial of roles in Dune, but he’ll be making a bigger impression in the recently-announced Part Two, where he acts as the nephew and confidant of Stellan Skarsgard’s Baron Von Harkonnen, but before production on the closing chapter gets underway, it’s back to Marvel to shoot Vol. 3 with Gunn back behind the camera.