Army of the Dead Director Zack Snyder Gave Dave Bautista Confidence to Make His Own Movie

Wrestler-turned-actor Dave Bautista is best known for playing Drax in the Marvel Cinematic [...]

By Jamie Jirak

Wrestler-turned-actor Dave Bautista is best known for playing Drax in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and he has a lot of exciting projects to look forward to. Not only is Army of the Dead hitting Netflix this month, but Dune is finally being released in October. It was recently revealed that Bautista gave up a role in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad in order to work with Snyder on Army of the Dead, which was an experience that clearly had a huge impact on him. During a recent interview with Screen Rant, he talked about learning from Snyder and feeling confident that he could now direct his own film.

"I got the luxury and the privilege of watching him work as a director and DP, as a cinematographer, so that's something different," Bautista said of Snyder. "I've never had that in the past, and what's really cool about that is, I'm not communicating with the guy who's sitting behind a tent, you know, behind a monitor somewhere, I'm actually talking to the guy right here who's holding the camera. So being directed by him while he's right here, but I also get to watch his process, see how he works, see what he's looking at visually, or see the moments that he's capturing that he feels he needs to capture those moments on film and make his film better. So it's a really interesting process to see a painter paint his picture."

"Yeah, absolutely," Bautista replied when asked if he feels more confident in directing now that he's watched Snyder. "I feel like right now in my career, I feel confident that I could direct a film. But I have goals and they're, you know, I don't wanna do big epic films. I want to do very contained dramatic, inspiring films. That's always what I've wanted to do, but I feel like now, I feel confident that I've learned enough, that I know enough about the process. Obviously, I don't know every technical aspect, but I feel confident that I could sit in that director's chair right now. If I had a solid script and a solid cast, I could make one hell of a movie. I'm just at that point where I've learned from the best, I've absorbed it, I've been a student, and it was the same in wrestling."

Now playing in select theaters, Army of the Dead will be released on Netflix on May 21st.

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