Dave Bautista (@DaveBautista) is an actor and retired professional wrestler. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood, CA to talk about his new movie “The Killer’s Game”, how he recruited WWE Superstar Drew McIntyre for a role in the film, slimming down to 240lbs, his early wrestling days as Leviathan and Deacon Batista, why he couldn’t do a retirement tour like John Cena is planning for 2025, his friendship with Triple H, if he could have done more in the wrestling world, the botched ending to the 2005 Royal Rumble that saw Vince McMahon tear his quads, Mark Jindrak being in Evolution, his iconic theme music and more!
Quote I’m thinking about: “Time is the only currency you spend without ever knowing your balance. Use it wisely”
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On starting his acting journey:
“I did an episode of Smallville, and I did it because I was a fan. I was a fanboy. I wanted to be on a Superman-related show. I just had no interest in acting. I wouldn’t say I did a film and it made me fall in love with acting. I did a film that made me want to be better at acting. I did a film called Wrong Side of Town. I did it, and I didn’t think much of it. Again, I was on top of my wrestling game, and I loved wrestling. I was obsessed with it. That’s all I wanted to do. I went and I did this film and I realized what a horrible actor I was, like so bad. I was really embarrassed, and I just wanted to prove to myself that I could be better. I mean, I left that set just feeling unfulfilled, and I had the itch, man. I just wanted to get better. And so, as you know, Wrong Side of Town, that kind of started my whole journey.”
On the wrestler once known as Deacon Batista now being one of the biggest actors on the planet:
“It’s weird hearing that, because I don’t think about myself like that at all. I feel like I’m really starting to break into my own, my career is [taking off]. It took all these years to kind of, I feel like I’m just getting started. Now I’m starting to get lead roles now. I’m starting to build on my career. And they’re not like massive lead roles. I’m not doing massive studio $150, $200 million films. I’m not on the top, so I’m not like a big movie star. But I’m coming into my own.”
Do you want to be at that level?
“I do want to be at that level, and there’s a particular reason. One, I really want my company to be successful. But also, I’ve kind of learned throughout my journey that the bigger star you are, the more you can get things done. It’s just easier to get things done. It’s the nature of business. People see you as a commodity, they see that you can generate money. Same with wrestling, if they see that you can generate revenue for the company, then they’ll make you a star.”
On slimming down:
“I got really big for a role, and it was uncomfortably big. Knock at the Cabin. I got really big. I was around 315 pounds and I put the weight on really fast. [Not like 315 in WWE?] No, definitely not. When I was younger I was carrying lots and lots of muscle, this I had to put on between films. I had a very short period of time to put this weight on. I packed it on with french fries and pancakes. That’s how I did it. The director asked me, he said I don’t want you to look like a powerlifter, I just want you to look like a great big guy. So now, looking back at it, I probably overdid it. I was probably a little too big. But at the time, I was just thinking, I gotta get big, I gotta get big, I gotta get big. I put on an uncomfortable amount of weight, and it took me forever to shed it off. And then I noticed, the more I trimmed down, the better I felt. I also noticed, the more I trimmed down, the better I looked on camera, the better I looked next to other actors, because typically, even at this weight, it’s weird, because people think for me, people say, God, you’re skinny. I’ve even saw online that some people are worried about my health, and when I say it out loud to people, I’m 6 foot 4 240 pounds. When you say that out loud, it sounds like I’m a big person. But to me, because people have seen me so much bigger over the years they think I’m anorexic, but I’m still a large human being. So at 6 foot 4 240 pounds, next to your typical actor, I look like a gorilla, and it’s distracting. So I’ll probably lose a few more pounds because I’m basically killing myself to be this trim. I mean, I’m training hard, not only training hard, but my calories are pretty restricted.”
On not being sure about his audience:
“It’s weird. I always tell people I’m not really sure where my audience is, because I’ve been kind of all over the place with my career. A lot of the fans who were real hardcore fans when I was wrestling, they love me because they love that character. And obviously, I’m not that character in person, and also because I’ve aged and I’m not jacked and I have grey hair and I have a bald head now, I don’t know if they still are invested in me. But again, maybe it’s a little bit of my insecurity.”
On life before wrestling:
“It’s weird, because I don’t know how people thought that I was brought up. But when I was a kid, a lot of times we didn’t have food. Me, my mom and my sister slept in a basement of a house in DC and we all shared one bed. I didn’t grow up with money, I grew up with less than no money. I had a pretty rough childhood, and I was broke until I was well into my 30s, and this is what led me into wrestling. I was broke and had two kids, I was bouncing and I couldn’t afford to buy my kids Christmas presents one year, I had to borrow money to buy my kids Christmas presents. I was so humiliated that I said, I got to make a change, I got to do something. I didn’t have many choices because I had no education, high school dropout. So I started, I was an athletic person, I was enormous. I thought I’ll give wrestling a shot. I failed in my first attempt, then I paid someone to teach me how to wrestle, Afa of The Wild Samoans, God rest his soul. It was so heartbreaking that he’s passed away, and that was kind of it. That’s where my journey started. But even after that, it was a long, long road. A lot of people didn’t believe in me. Even when I was in developmental camp down OVW, there was people with the WWE, John Laurinaitis, who wanted to fire me. But I just kept digging in and digging in and digging in and digging in until I finally got my real first opportunity with Evolution, and I had access to Triple H and Ric Flair, I mean, two of the greatest professional wrestlers ever. I wasn’t going to blow my shot, so I just had blinders on. I put everything else in the back burner and focused on my wrestling career.”
On if being in OVW was a help or a hindrance given the others in his class:
“It didn’t hurt me as far as they went, they only helped me. They only drove me. When you are surrounded by greatness, it brings out the best in you. These guys, to say they were competitive would be a massive understatement, it was a class full of studs. These guys were athletes, so I was good there, I needed them. Thank God they were there. What hurt me was my character that I had in OVW. I always get grief about this because people think that I don’t respect Jim Cornette. I really do. The reason I do is because Jim Cornette taught us so much about the history of wrestling. He taught us so much about the traditions of wrestling. But I won’t back down when I say that career, that character [Leviathan], it stunted my growth in OVW because I had nothing but squash matches. That’s what I did. I went out and in two or three moves, and my matches were over. I had Goldberg matches, and they didn’t. I didn’t progress like the rest of the guys. I didn’t progress like Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, those guys are incredible athletes. Obviously, with Randy being a legacy, I think he was born and bred into this business, but I was just stunted a little bit. I never got to speak on the mic. I spoke on the mic a few times and it was me screaming into the mic. But I think my growth there was a little bit stunted, I went into the WWE completely unprepared, and it was like a whole new learning curve. I remember, and I will say it over and over, that Fit Finlay in a day changed my life. I went and that was kind of a last-ditch effort. John Laurinaitis sent me down to work with Fit, Steve Regal and Dave Taylor. Fit just took me aside and just started talking to me like, what’s wrong with you? More than the physical stuff, he just got in my head a little bit and made me see things differently and a light bulb just went off in my head.”
On how Drew McIntyre became involved in the project:
“Really just pointing everybody towards Drew, because I was having a conversation with J.J. [Perry – Director], and he said, I need a great big guy who’s almost intimidating to you, a guy who would be kind of bigger than you and I also need him to be able to pull off a Scottish accent. He was like, Do you know anybody? I was like, Man, I got the perfect guy [laughs]. I immediately thought of Drew, and I loved Drew. I’ve always gotten along with Drew and I’ve known Drew probably since he was a teenager. I think it was like 18 or 19 when I met him. So I pointed him in this direction. I sent him a bunch of pictures, some reference stuff, and I was like, this is the guy, don’t even look any further. And he said, Oh, I love him. So immediately I hit up Drew and said, Hey, man, would you be interested? He said, absolutely. I said, check with Hunter, make sure you are cool. And thank God Hunter, because things have changed a lot. I think Hunter changed the company in a lot of great ways, but he’s very open-minded to letting people do stuff outside of the company because he really understands that the bigger star they become, the more attention it will bring back to WWE, which is a great thing. Where I think in the past, it was just kind of the opposite of everything. We wanted to keep everything contained, everything, everybody in-house, which is why I ended up leaving the company because I wasn’t afforded the opportunity to do stuff outside of the company. But now, the way things are now, and their structure, Hunter is like, yes, we want you to do this. This brings more eyes onto the WWE.”
On if he keeps in touch with Triple H:
“I don’t know if he likes my movies. He probably thinks I’m a sh*t actor [laughs]. But I’ve always clicked with Hunter. I get Hunter, and Hunter gets me, and I think we could go a year without talking to each other, and then when we pick up a conversation, it’s like we just talked to each other yesterday.”
On if he made it to the top of the wrestling world:
“No, I think if I had stayed longer, I might have. There’s a part of me that always thinks right guy right time. But I don’t know what I would have achieved if I had been like a John Cena or Randy Orton, been the 13, 14, 20-time World Champion, I don’t know. But I think what I did in the short period of time that I was actually there, my run between 2005 and 2010 I’m proud of. I can say that I’m proud of it. I’ve had the conversation with Hunter about going to the Hall of Fame and there was always a part of me that makes me feel like my career is not worthy of going into the Hall of Fame. Well he said this to me, and this makes sense. He said, you accomplished a lot in the short period of time you were there, I think it’s worthy. But if you don’t feel like it’s worthy, look at it this way, what you’ve accomplished outside of the company makes you a Hall of Fame WWE wrestler, and I would tend to agree with that. I think I’ve accomplished a lot, and I’ve never turned my back on my roots. I’ve always been very proud of it, been very open about being a WWE superstar, and I think I’m a good ambassador for the company. I think if on those merits, if they want to put me on the Hall of Fame, I’d be proud to accept that.”
On John Cena and the upcoming retirement tour:
“I get along with John. I respect John a lot, a lot more than people think I do for some reason. I think the internet and I think fans have built this rivalry between us, which there really isn’t, but this is how we’re different. I would never do this [retirement tour]. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t. It would feel disingenuine to me to go around and I just couldn’t. But where I see his point where he wants to go around and he wants to personally thank all the fans, but there’s just something in me where I just couldn’t do it. It would feel uncomfortable to me, like accolades feel uncomfortable to me. I could never be the type of babyface who was saying good stuff because I wanted to get the crowd to cheer for me. I couldn’t be that guy. So I love and respect what he’s doing with his whole tour to say thank you to the fans, but we’re just different that way. I couldn’t do it. I went out the way I wanted. I retired the way I wanted. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I announced my retirement on Instagram and I knew I was going to do it. I just didn’t want to tell anybody I was going to do it because I didn’t want anybody to say, no, no, you got to come in, you got to give a speech, you know, the fans. I don’t know, just something about it would have felt false to me. I couldn’t do it.”
On the 2005 Royal Rumble:
“Well, the whole day I thought I was getting fired. The whole day was just a nightmare. [They didn’t tell you you were winning?] No, I knew I was winning. But what happened was, so I think we were in San Francisco the night before, and so I stayed there instead of driving to Bakersfield. I stayed there because my mom lives there, and I want to stay and I want to spend time with my mom. So I got up the next day, and I drove and I was really late to the show. I was really late to getting there, and I knew that I was supposed to go over that night and it was like a big deal and I was going to go to WrestleMania. Vince thought that I was being super disrespectful by showing up late, and he was pissed. I thought he was going to change his mind and it was going to change, like the whole storyline. So I got there, and he ringed me out as soon as I got there. But then we [had] the match, and it was botched, and I totally take the blame for it, because I went over. I knew what the finish was, and I just went over. I just went over and thank God we landed when we did kind of at the same time, it was a miracle. Then when I saw Vince coming down, I was like, I’m getting fired. Most of my career, until later in my career, throughout my career, especially in OVW, I thought any day now I’m getting fired. I’m getting fired. I was just so happy to be there.”
At what point do you realize he’s torn both quads?
“I think later on, I didn’t realize during the match, I didn’t know why he was sitting there. I had no idea what was going on, I was just worried about the match. Then they got him out of there. I think I found out later on. The funny thing was, so I can’t remember where we were at the next day. But it was the next day, and I got to the building and somebody immediately said, ‘Vince wants to see you in his office.’ I was saying, Ah, here it comes. So I went to his office, and my heart is beating, just in my head I’m packing my bags. I walk into his office, and he’s sitting, he’s got his crutches beside him, and he’s all bandaged up. He just starts laughing. He’s laughing at the top of his lungs, ha, ha. I was like, ‘You’re not gonna fire me?’ And he goes, ‘No, I loved it! It was real! It was so great, and it was real, and nobody knew what was gonna happen.’ He loved it. I think that Vince thrives on chaos. When you think about some guy, he’s a billionaire, he’s accomplished everything it could. He’s bought everything that he could ever buy. So what’s he got left, excitement! I think because that moment was so chaotic, I think it just excited him and it exhilarated him. So even though it was a total botch, I think he just had so much fun in that exhilarating, exciting moment that he kind of thrived on it and he forgave me.”
What is Batista grateful for:
“Health, that my mother raised me the way she did and for dogs.”
