It’s time we admit it: Dave Bautista is our best wrestler-turned-actor, and it's not even close
With Knock At The Cabin, four-time WWE champion Dave Bautista solidifies himself as an actor first
The squared circle-to-silver screen pipeline has never been particularly clean. While there’s always a guest spot for jacked-up wrestlers on Young Rock, rising to the level of a movie star is another question entirely. Despite weekly TV time, a feverish cult of fans willing to wear a performer’s face on a T-shirt, and a required charisma that engages live audiences and TV viewers alike through pure physicality, successful pro wrestlers’ abilities don’t always translate to the movies. However, of the few that made the successful jump, your Rocks, Cenas, and Hogans, none have shown as much versatility and dedication as four-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion Dave Bautista.
Across his 10 years of moviemaking, Bautista has built a firm foundation of work that culminates in M. Night Shyamalan’s latest one-location pressure-cooker, Knock At The Cabin. The movie gives Bautista so much to chew on, with lengthy, emotionally complex monologues that put his wrestling-born mic skills through the wringer. He couldn’t be further from where he started.
Bautista’s journey resembles his contemporaries, but he popped earlier and more forcefully, becoming an unexpected breakout in Guardians
Of The Galaxy. It’s long been said that Marvel doesn’t produce movie stars and that people are going to see Captain America, not Chris Evans. That isn’t true with Drax, a deep-cut, idiosyncratic character in a cast filled with them, and Bautista stole the limelight with the most original, infectious, and hilarious performance of the lot.
These things aren’t an accident. Playing an unflappable, irony-averse character is challenging, especially in a movie when your screen partner is a baby tree, a talking raccoon, and a living planet. Yet, Bautista found a deft balance with the character that could be antagonistic but is nevertheless reflective of real-world experience, becoming a hero within the Autism community. “It’s a wonderful thing that he’s part of this group, that he’s living his own life, that he’s dealing with things on his own,” Matt Asner, vice president of development for the Autism Society of America, told ABC News. “That’s what we need to get to, characters that are autistic and just a part of the world on the screen, instead of making a statement about it.” Today, Bautista might, unfortunately, consider Drax “a silly performance.” It’s a shame. If Marvel movies generally lack humanity, Bautista’s Drax is an argument against that.
That’s not to say other wrestlers aren’t hitting their work with deep emotion. John Cena has proven himself to be one of the most exciting stars of the last decade. His performances as an overly protective, butt-chugging suburban dad in Blockers hit some classic Schwarzenegger beats, a la Kindergarten Cop, with more comedic confidence and vulnerability.
But, once again, playing a superhero helped him find his footing. He comes up big in The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker. As in the ring, Cena’s square jaw and massive frame play off his sullen eyes. No one looks more hurt when crowds shower him with boos, and he’s been able to transfer that to the surprising pathos of Peacemaker. Through his work with James Gunn, Cena tapped into his innate sad clown energy, and watching him wield such a low-status interior in that body is captivating. When he’s not playing into that, though, things are dicier. There’s more to be said about his never-ending zip-line than his performance as “Jakob” in F9: The Fast Saga.
There’s a feeling in F9 that Cena is here to replace Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a once-promising actor who spent the last decade over-calculating and underdelivering. Armed with contractual stipulations regarding how many times he can be punched on screen, The Rock has settled into his persona as a tan T-shirt enthusiast too quickly. There are no stakes for the Rock because he doesn’t let the audience see him fail. When we see Johnson, whether it be on the red carpet or in Jungle Cruise, it’s always through a thick film of corporate synergy. He’ll show up, rattle off a couple of gravelly one-liners, plug his tequila, and move on to the next step and repeat.