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Movies & TV

11th May 2021

“I don’t want to be Tom Holland!” – Dave Bautista on the difficulty of keeping big Marvel secrets

Rory Cashin

We chatted to Bautista about his new Netflix movie Army of the Dead and the tricky world of spoilers.

When it comes to wrestlers-slash-actors, there was a time when it wasn’t necessarily a recipe for success.

Remember when Hulk Hogan did stuff like Mr. Nanny? Yeah…

However, it has all taken a turn for the much, MUCH better, thanks to folks like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, John Cena and, of course, Dave Bautista.

Best known as the alien-who-doesn’t-quite-understand-sarcasm Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, Bautista has seen his career go from strength to strength lately, right up to his brand new release Army of the Dead, an epic action-horror movie arriving on Netflix this month.

In the run-up to the movie’s release, we were lucky enough to catch up with Bautista and chat about his new movie and you can check out that interview below.

We also chatted to the movie’s director and co-writer Zack Snyder and you can check out that interview right here.

While the majority of our chat with Bautista did revolve around his new zombie opus, we did have to talk about his career to date and how the movies he’s been a part of – from the Marvel outings, to Spectre, to Blade Runner 2049 – all lend themselves to heavy speculation from fans.

So when you’re working on big top secret movies like these, how difficult is it to keep these secrets?

Bautista told us: “I’ve found that the best way of going about that is really putting thought into it. Because I don’t want to spoil anything, because I’m a fan, so I understand that. As a fan, I don’t want to give away spoilers. I don’t want to know. A lot of times, when I’m on projects, if I don’t have to read the script, if I’m a fan of that genre. There was the Avengers and some of that stuff, I don’t want to read the script, and I want to go and watch it as a fan.

“So I always think along those lines, but I also think along the lines of being respectful to the studios that I’m working for and the filmmakers that I’m working for. But it is tough dancing around those types of questions because I’m excited and I’m also an honest person and I want to give, I want to answer. And sometimes my answers are ridiculous just because I’m trying to dance around a spoiler.

“So it is tough, and I haven’t mastered it, but I have not gotten any calls. So… which is like Tom Holland or Mark Ruffalo, those guys are terrible! So basically, I don’t want to be Tom Holland! I don’t want to get that grief thrown back at me.

“But what are you gonna do, y’know? He’s Spider-Man!”

Army of the Dead arrives on Netflix on Friday, 21 May.

Clip via Netflix