Dave Bautista has conquered Hollywood. At home in Tampa, he is just a guy with his dogs

Dave Bautista has conquered Hollywood. At home in Tampa, he is just a guy with his dogs
Dave Bautista has conquered Hollywood. At home in Tampa, he is just a guy with his dogs

Dave Bautista has long resisted Hollywood’s gravitational pull, keeping Tampa, Florida, as his base of operations. For fans, seeing him walking his dogs, it is so likely to see him knock down the villains on the screen, maybe more. Geography helps, safe, but rushes to minimize its impact on how it remains on land.

“What has kept me normal I’m. “So it’s not so much where I live, that’s how I grew up, how I grew up and it has a lot to do with my mother.”

That relatability, the image of a film star that relaxes with its dogs and shops for its own groceries, is a large part of why Bautista has maintained a status of almost “all.” However, his characters are anything but. Over the years, he has played extraterrestrials, beasts, henchmen and fighters. Now, with your new movie DejectionEnter the role of a survivor.

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Persecution adventure

In DejectionNow in theaters, Bautista is a scavenger who sails through a burned Europe after the solar flares devastated the world. The actor believes that he would do it well if he falls into a similar situation, but admits that he is not exactly outdoors. He has never cultivated a plant in his life and explains that his survival strategy would be reduced to canned products and dog food. “It’s not the most inspiring answer,” he says with a smile. “I just pray that we never get there.”

That humility is part of the fun of the new Baptist movie, a post-apocalyptic adventure that, according to him, was his opportunity to finally verify something of his desire list: make a “adventure film.”

“Do not compare it, but National Treasury It was a reference for me, “he says. It is the type of project that Bautista yearned, even if he came with challenges: an adjusted budget, a limited time and a script that went through multiple rewriting.

I wanted to create a hero that felt different from the invincible archetypes that dominate action movies, and those that are accustomed to touching. He didn’t want to be a soldier, as the original script read, but an ingenious scavenger. “More Nicolas Cage,” jokes.

Even so, there is no shortage of struggle sequences to keep their satisfied fans, and Bautista insists on throwing themselves as physicality as demanding a role. Ok, something of that physicality.

“I usually do my own fighting scenes,” says Bautista. “I love fighting sequences. But acrobatics are potentially mortal … jumping from a bridge to a train? Do they give you fire? I leave it to professionals.”

That balance, knowing when to push your body and when to go back, is something Bautista thinks more these days. At 56, he is in a stage of his career where many action stars begin to climb.

Find a new rhythm at 56

When I ask Bautista if his training approach has changed pure intensity to sustainability with age, he laughs. Before preproduction in this film, he did not focus on building more muscle or learning new stunts … I was simply trying to lose weight.

“In any case, I was trying to lose weight,” he says, explaining that it was not for a role but only “for life.” And, while jokes, maybe a little vanity. “I am a bald boy with a beard, I can only change my appearance so much.”

Baptist’s body has been central in almost all the chapters of his career, but as he ages, his priorities are changing. “It’s more about finding things I enjoy. You exercise harder (that way),” he says. “In the past, being in shape was a side effect of my mental trauma. Exercise was therapeutic. But as I aged, lifting weights became bored. I began to find new things: martial arts, Jiu-Jitsu, cardiovascular training. The things that made my body feel better and improved my cardiovascular health. At this age, that is more important.”

But physical aptitude is only part of the equation. For Bautista, well -being also comes from finding small daily rituals to be based. However, it is not a meditation application.

“People can meditate on everything they want … it doesn’t work for me,” he says. “If I can spend 10 minutes playing with my dogs, it is worth 20 hours of meditation for me. I find my happy place in that. So I think everyone has to find their, you know,” spend time with the therapy of their dogs. “

Compliance with fame

That perspective feeds on how he thinks about his longevity in the entertainment industry. Bautista doesn’t want to be just a movie star. He is not chasing payment checks or padding his curriculum with each franchise role offered. It is a mentality that emphasizes while we talk, because it explains almost everything about the elections he has taken since he moved away from the fight and forged a second act in Hollywood.

“That approach has driven my career. I still feel the same,” he explains about not letting fame or money give their decisions. “I don’t like talking about finance, but I simply took a massive salary cut for a role that I wanted to do for years. I didn’t think about money, just the paper itself and what it would mean to me personally.”

“At my age and where my career is now, it’s about satisfaction,” says Bautista. “I am at the disadvantage of my career and I want to do things that are significant, where I can let the business feel completely made, satisfied and may inspire some people along the way.”

That feeling of satisfaction also shapes how life sees beyond Hollywood. In DejectionThe Baptist character navigates a world without modern technology, a concept that the actor admits is tempting. In real life, he dreams of leaving his phone, although he admits that he is tied to him. “I would love to give up my phone, forget it,” he says. “At the same time, I can’t live without that. Panic if I lose it. I feel disconnected from the world.”

It is not moving incessantly to Instagram or Tiktok. “I could give up social networks tomorrow,” he says, although he will not, not yet. “I love connecting with fans. Fanatics are not a fact; they are a blessing. But one day I will say: ‘Thank you for all the years of support, I love you,’ and simply live my life with my dogs. At this time, I’m not there yet. But that will come one day.”

And when that day comes, Bautista already knows where he wants to be. Not in a place like Bel Air, California, or Hollywood. Not in a sound scenario. Not in a sand. “I will probably be in northern Virginia or Maryland, where I can have properties for my dogs to run,” says Bautista, who was born in Washington, DC. “My hometown is my heart, and it is the place that I love more than anywhere in the world. So that’s what I want … only me, my dogs and without phone.”

In the end, it is a classic Baptist: the action star that can tear down the villains on the screen, but outside the camera it only wants a purpose, peace and enough dog food to last the apocalypse.

(Tagstotranslate) Dave Bautista (T) Hollywood

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