Dave Bautista talks about his career after Marvel and his romantic lead role in “The Killer's Game”

Dave Bautista has discovered the secret to success.

The professional wrestler turned actor made headlines last year when he said he had “never gotten an offer for a romantic comedy,” leading him to question whether he was too “unattractive” to be considered for such roles. But now, just a year and a half later, he is starring in the romantic action film The murderer's game (in cinemas on 13 September) and he tells Weekly entertainment he's starring in “a couple” of romantic comedies currently in development (a “pure romantic comedy” with Ryan Reynolds' production company Maximum Effort and an “action romantic comedy” with the Russo brothers' production company AGBO). So what's his secret to making his dream come true in record time?

It's simple: Bautista simply said out loud what he wanted. He announced his retirement from the role of Drax the Destroyer in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy and expressed his desire to play romantic leads. He is proud of how he has taken control of his career by speaking his truth and believes his comments have helped change people's perspectives on his abilities as an actor.

“I think sometimes people just need to hear it from you, and it's not that they're against it, but until they hear it, they just don't think about it,” says Bautista Weekly entertainment. “A lot of people didn't know I was interested and probably didn't know if I had gotten offers or didn't care. They just had no idea about it. And I brought it to their attention and now after making this statement, it's happening. That's a huge validation. Especially in this business, it means a lot to me.”

But when he reflects on his recent post-Marvel career (2023 Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 was his last performance), Bautista realizes he hasn't really thought about the big picture. “Oh man, it's weird – I don't know if I ever had a clear idea of ​​what direction I wanted my career to go in,” he says. “I've always just put certain pieces of the puzzle together – maybe one day I'll have the puzzle together, but right now it's just little pieces.”

Those “little bits” include finding “roles and genres” that interest him in the short term — like romantic comedies and romantic leads. “Sometimes I wish I had a clearer direction, but I know what I want to do professionally,” he says. “When I finished with Marvel, I made a conscious decision to turn down supporting roles and focus on leading roles, or I'll just always be a supporting actor.”

He credits Mahershala Ali with making him realize he had more control over the roles he could get. “I want to be a leading man and I had to start looking for leading roles that made sense,” Bautista says. “I want to do a little bit of everything because I like a little bit of everything — I want to do family movies, but I want to do action movies, but I want to do dramatic movies and I want to do romantic comedies. I don't want to be limited. I want to be able to step into any role.”

His ambition stems from a deep love of acting, but also from necessity – he knows he can't keep doing the same roles he built his career on. “I'm not the big, muscular guy I used to be,” he says. “I'm not going to get any more action roles in my 50s.” He also admits he's not a fan of action movies, which is why he wants to evolve. “I guess I look like the guy who just couldn't wait for the next movie. Fast & Furious The movie came out, but I love small, self-contained indie dramas. I want to be a real and respected actor. I'm scared. I keep thinking, 'This will be my last project; the phone will stop ringing.'”

That is why he is proud of The murderer Game: it's the first time he's been cast as a true romantic lead. In the highly stylized comedic action romance, Bautista plays professional assassin Joe, who ironically saves the life of star dancer Maize (Sofia Boutella) while committing murder during her performance. But just as Joe and Maize fall in love, Joe is mistakenly diagnosed with a fatal disease and decides to kill himself rather than wait to die a slow, painful death. When he learns that he will actually survive, he must fend off an army of his fellow assassins and win back the love of his life.

Bautista says this film is “very much” his way into the romance genre, allowing audiences to see a new side of him while still providing the action they expect. “This is my vehicle, this is my transition, absolutely,” he adds. “To be honest, it's a romantic comedy disguised as an action movie. And that's exactly what it is.”

The murderer's game has been in development since the mid-'90s, with many actors originally slated to star, including Wesley Snipes, Michael Keaton and Jason Statham. The script popped in and out of Bautista's orbit several times for nearly a decade, until he finally came on board because of the romance at its center. But when stuntman JJ Perry was brought on to direct, Bautista became “concerned.”

“Because I wasn’t looking for an action film,” he says. “I only knew him from a film he had directed, Day shift with Jamie Foxx, and I liked it a lot, but I was really scared that he would just focus on the action. I was so scared that it would become a poor man's game. John Wick.”

His worries were immediately put to rest when he first spoke to Perry. “One of the first things he said to me was, 'I love this script because there's a romance in the middle of it,'” Bautista recalls. “And I was like, 'Phew, I got it!' We're on the same page – he gets it. And the more we talked, the more I fell in love with JJ Perry because we realized we were both trying to prove the same thing: 'People know I can do action. This is something I haven't proven myself at yet.'”

Bautista laughs and adds, “We're like two struggling guys with the same stunt background. He's trying to prove himself as a director and I'm trying to prove myself as an actor.”

The next piece of the puzzle was finding the perfect leading actress – and Bautista only had eyes for one. “When I read the script for The murderer's game“Many, many years ago, Sofia immediately came to mind because of the dance and the character,” he says. “Since then, every time I thought about introducing Sofia, it was me. It couldn't be anyone else.”

The two met for the first time during the filming of “2018” Hotel Artemis — Bautista says they had a scene together but never interacted on camera — and he was impressed by how “genuine and straightforward she was.” But she played Maize in The murderer's game Given their schedule, it proved more difficult than he had imagined… so he remembered his ability to make things happen.

“They brought out other actresses, great actresses, but they're just not Maize,” Bautista recalls. “I couldn't imagine anyone else in that role, so I sulked and bitched and moaned and groaned and pushed and agreed to change my schedule and do whatever it took to get her there. Finally, we came up with these very limited dates that she could work, and I said, 'Let's do it. I don't care what it costs,' and so we did.”

Although he admits it was “just a nightmare trying to sort out the schedule” and it was a “chaotic” filming experience due to the limited days they had Boutella, he has no regrets. “We fought to be there together,” he says, adding that their comfort and support for each other translates into their on-screen chemistry. “I thought it was super sweet to see us together. That's all I can think about when I see us together – and I'm not a sweet person.”

Now that he can finally cross romance novels and romantic comedies off his ever-evolving career to-do list, he knows what he wants to do next. And he's ready to say it out loud.

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“I really want to make a film,” he reveals. “And I'm going to do it. That's probably because I'm a control freak – I want to make my own film and control everything. And I love working with actors, refining performances and challenging people.”

After years of searching unsuccessfully for the right script, Bautista finally decided to write his own. “I found someone who helped me write it and the idea is Hunting for good will to a Fleetwood Mac song,” he says. “It's not going to be a big movie – it's going to be a very low-budget indie film with a lot of content. I want to take this film to festivals.”

And despite announcing his retirement last year, he has not ruled out a return to Marvel – or DC, now that his Guardians of the Galaxy Freund runs the competing comic studio.

“I want to work with James Gunn again, but it just has to be the right character and make sense,” says Bautista. “I'm a geek, man. I love science fiction; I love the world of superheroes. I want Gears of War “I've been chasing this for years because I want to play the character Marcus Fenix ​​​​and I believe I do him justice. And I'm not afraid to say it out loud. I want that damn role.”

Your move, Hollywood.