Dave Bautista Wants Everyone To Forget He Played Drax
Dave Bautista wants people to forget about his silly performances as Drax, as he wants to do more dramatic acting.
His portrayal of Drax the Destroyer in the Marvel Cinematic Universe helped make Dave Bautista a household name and opened many doors for him as an actor. However, he’s closing the door on the MCU after the next Guardians of the Galaxy film, and the actor seems hopeful that audiences will stop primarily associating him with Drax. In an interview with GQ, Bautista confessed that, “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.”
Of course, Dave Bautista is not wrong about Drax being a character brought to life by “a silly performance.” Aside from his imposing physique, the thing Drax is most known for is that his species basically takes everything literally. Memorably, in the first Guardians of the Galaxy film, he disputed the idea that something could go “over his head” because his reflexes are so fast that he would inevitably catch them.
And back when he first appeared in the MCU, Dave Bautista was known (if he was known at all) as a wrestler who, like other wrestlers before him, had dabbled in film and television. Being part of Marvel’s hot new team in the 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy helped Bautista concentrate fully on his film career as he gained a legion of new fans. And since then, he has taken on several roles beyond playing the MCU’s other big, green warrior.
One director who realized early that Dave Bautista had many talents is Denis Villeneuve. Bautista was very impressive in acting against type in an early scene in Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049. The director was clearly impressed with Bautista’s work and brought him on to star in Dune: Part One and the upcoming Dune: Part Two.
It might be fair to say that it was Villeneuve that inspired Dave Bautista to focus on more dramatic roles. In that same interview, he mentioned how the director “brings out the best in me” and, “He sees me in a different light, sees the performer that I want to be.” He also boldly claimed in the interview that he doesn’t really care about being a major movie star and is instead content “to be a better actor” and to gain more respect from his peers in the acting community.
However, for as much as Dave Bautista wants to concentrate on more dramatic roles, it’s clear from his role in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery that he’s not averse to taking sillier roles. In that movie, he portrays Duke Cody, a disgraced streamer who pivoted to becoming a men’s rights advocate and who hungers to be an anchor on Alpha News. Sure, the character is more complex than Drax (hell, what character isn’t?), but this character’s wacky personality and antics definitely place him on the opposite side of the “dramatic stuff” Bautista wants to focus on.
Then again, Dave Bautista is someone who knows how to parlay high-profile projects into better opportunities for himself. Just like working with Denis Villeneuve opened doors for more acting opportunities, working with Glass Onion director Rian Johnson may do the same. But no matter how seriously Bautista takes his craft as he closes the door on Marvel, the former wrestler’s portrayal of Drax will never fail to make us laugh.
