Guardians of the Galaxy Director James Gunn Explains Why Bautista’s Drax Humor Worked So Well

Yesterday, we wrote a story about Guardians of the Galaxy star Dave Bautista after he said he struggled with Drax’s comedy on the Inside of You podcast hosted by his Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 co-star Michael Rosenbaum. “What I really want to do, I like drama. Just regular old drama,” Bautista said. “Those roles for me are hard to get a hold of, but I’m constantly searching for them. But I’m limited sometimes. Sometimes it’s really hard to get people to look outside the box and see someone like myself in those roles.” He added, “It’s hard for me. I don’t find myself funny, so it’s hard for me.” The story caught the attention of the films’ director, James Gunn, who had some really nice things to say about Bautista.

“Drax isn’t funny because @DaveBautista is ‘being funny’ – he’s funny because Dave plays the character honestly, expertly, & with heart. As over-the-top as Drax can sometimes be, Dave’s groundedness allows us to love him & laugh with him,” Gunn wrote. Batista saw the tweet and replied with a heart. You can check out the posts below:

During the podcast, Bautista revealed he was most looking forward to scenes revealing Drax’s tragic backstory, including one deleted scene taking place on Knowhere. In the scene, a drunk Drax explains the meaning of the tattoo-like markings on his body, each containing the history of his life.

“The stuff in the first film that I looked forward to was the dramatic stuff, like Drax talking about his family being murdered right in front of him. Stuff like that scene, the really hard scene, was cut out,” Bautista explained. “It was cut out of the film because it was just kind of slow and dark. But that was the kind of stuff I was really looking forward to.”

Recently, ComicBook hosted a Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Quarantine Watch Party. Gunn took part in the event along with Chris Pratt (Star-Lord), Steve Agee (Gef), Sean Gunn (Kraglin/Rocket), and Pom Klementieff (Mantis). Gunn shared lots of fun behind-the-scenes tidbits, and some surprise guests also stopped by with cool content.

Bautista next reprises the role in Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. The film has not yet been dated by Marvel Studios.