Dave Bautista Opens Up About His Struggle & the Set of the Avengers

Dave Bautista is one of the nicest guys that you could ever meet. He was hilarious in the first Guardians of the Galaxy film, and I promise you he is even funnier in the second one. The character development was everything I could have asked for and I hope we see more of him and his history in Volume 3. Talking with Dave for a second time was eye opening, and I have to admit, I really felt for him at moments.

Not Drax the Destroyer

The first question we asked Dave was what he first thought of the script. Drax became more of a prominent role in volume 2 (which was great) but Dave’s response surprised us all. Dave must enjoy the comics like I do because when we asked him what he thought about the script the first time he read it, he warned us we were not going to like the answer.

He was hoping that James Gunn was going to take Drax down the Drax the Destroyer route and make him more like the comic books, but instead James focused more on the humor side of Drax from Volume 1. I have to admit that I do enjoy the comic book version of Drax, however, humorous Drax really works well for the film.

“When I first read the script, I wasn’t crazy about it. When I get a script I go over my dialogue first. So, I read over my dialogue and for one I was expecting them to go a different direction with Drax. I thought he was gonna be more of the destroyer. I thought he was gonna be a more comic book Drax and then I realized they were digging more into the funny bits. And I don’t find myself funny at all, so when I was reading these lines I was [thinking]they’re not funny. [Then] I read the [whole]script, and I thought, wow, this is really a great script. It’s deep. It’s emotional, but I still was a little bit disappointed about my part. And then the first day we did our table read, I realized it was hysterical.“

Thoughts After Watching Volume 2

Since Dave seemed to initially not be too thrilled about the movie, we wanted to know how he felt after seeing it all put together. If he could understand how hilarious he was and he great a role Drax is.

“I think it’s beautiful. I like it better than the first film. It’s weird. The more and more we get into film, the more I am sucked into it and there’s certain beats I just sniffle up and I get so emotionally invested in this film. I felt that the first one was fun and exciting and some parts were very emotional, but not like this one. I felt like I was just totally absorbed in this film.“

Dave’s Struggle

I know I mentioned it in my on set interview with Dave, but the idea of him can be a little intimidating. Not sure much Dave himself, as Drax. He is a big guy – but he couldn’t be more opposite of what you might expect. He is very sweet, soft spoken, and humble. I cannot say enough about how great he is. Something that really touched me was when Dave talked about how self conscious he is.

The fact that he literally has a hard time watching himself made me sad. He is a brilliant actor and I hope he realizes that.

“As far as watching me on film, I just cringe. I don’t like watching myself on film. It’s uncomfortable. Last night at the premiere, every time I was on the screen and I knew I was gonna say something I just kinda put my head down and just try to get through it. I am still judging myself.“

Awwww…right guys? I just want to wrap him in a big hug and tell him how great he is. I know people personally who struggle with the same sort of things and it is so heartbreaking sometimes. Even his mannerisms stood out to me as someone who is often uncomfortable in large groups.

“We were filming and we watched playbacks, everybody knows that I don’t like them. They [would]call Zoe, call Chris to watch the playbacks. They don’t call me to watch playbacks, because they know I won’t sit there and watch it. Drax is definitely not who I am. He’s big and boisterous and a little bit egotistical and proud. And I’m not that. I’m much more self-conscious and understated.“

Romance for Drax?

In Volume 1 Drax spoke a bit about his wife, his great love, and he does the same in Volume 2. I asked Dave if he would want to see Drax ever fall in love again, and his response was just what I wanted to hear. 

“No. If I can have input on it, I would say no, because it’s the root of who Drax is. Drax lives for his heartbreak. You know, he’s just too heartbreaking. I don’t think he’ll ever have a romantic connection with anyone. “

Drax’s Future

We asked Dave where he would like to see in store for Drax in the future. I must say, his response had me really excited for what might come. I hope James Gunn listens to him because I think fans would really like to see the same thing.

“What I’d really love is for people to have a visual – I’d love if they would actually show Drax’s family. [Or] some of the race of beings that he comes from. I’d like to see more people with different tattoos and that race of people. But I’d really think it would be great if the audience could just have a visual of Drax’s family.“

The Avengers

While chatting about how long the cast has been together, Dave casually mentioned them all being in the upcoming Avengers film. Of course, we all jumped on that and tried to get him to tell us something – anything – about the movie.

“I would love the spill the beans. I can tell you that we’re in the Avengers. But my fear going into the Avengers was that they were gonna try to make us into characters that we weren’t. [That] they were gonna take their [idea]of the Guardians and try to go with that and not let us be James Gunn’s Guardians. It was completely opposite. For one, James did a lot of the writing for us. And also when we showed up, the Russo brothers were just so encouraging of us being our characters. We have a certain way of doing things. I mean we’ve done two films – we just bounce off each other. Chris hardly ever says anything that’s actually on page. He says it a bunch of different times and a bunch of different ways. That’s just the way we do things. We bounce and we’re very flexible. And they were very encouraging of letting us do things our way – not only that, but they really liked it; they really appreciated it. They kinda let us be ourselves, man. It was great.“

My Moment with Dave

During the interview Dave got a little distracted by my Guardians of the Galaxy tattoo (you can hear him gasp on the audio – and no of course I don’t listen to it over and over). He had actually retweeted it on Twitter before we met so I was really excited to show him the progress in person.

After the whole interview was over, we got to chat for a moment and he got to see it up close. I was even lucky enough to get a picture with him. We joked that it was our prom pose, but honestly the photo came out great. I am a big fan of how Dave portrays Drax so it was such an honor to get that moment with him.

Get Ready to Laugh when Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 arrives 5/5!

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