Dave Bautista’s Rom-Com Dream! (Photo Credit – Instagram)
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Dave Bautista wants to star in a rom-com. No explosions, no apocalyptic threats — just love, laughs, and maybe a slow-motion run through the rain. But Hollywood doesn’t seem to be calling, and he’s starting to wonder why.
“I know I’m not your typical rom-com lead,” he admitted at the Knock at the Cabin premiere in New York City. “I’m a little rough around the edges. But I always, you know, I look in the mirror and I say, I ask myself, ‘Am I that unattractive? Is there something that unappealing about me that excludes me from these parts?’”
The man has played an intergalactic warrior, a deadly spy, and a literal apocalypse-bringer. But a charming bookshop owner who falls for an equally quirky co-star? Not yet. “I don’t know. It’s just never come my way,” he said. “I still have high hopes. I’ll just keep searching.”
Bautista wasn’t always chasing Hollywood stardom — he was throwing people out of bars. “I bounced all of my 20s up until I was 30 years [old]. I started bouncing when I was 17, and there was always some drunk a–hole who wanted to test me,” he said with a laugh.
Then came WWE. “It was really just [a] toxic environment where I was again. I always felt like [I was in a] bad environment,” he admitted. But life outside the ring changed him. “I’d rather handle it verbally. I’d always rather go there. And I’m kind of proud that I’ve turned into that guy, because when I was younger, I wasn’t that guy.”
Bautista took a sharp left turn in Knock at the Cabin, playing a soft-spoken schoolteacher with a terrifying mission. His character, along with three strangers, forced a couple to make an impossible choice, or risk ending the world.
The premiere saw co-stars Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Abby Quinn, and Nikki Amuka-Bird in attendance. Rupert Grint, however, had to sit this one out after testing positive for COVID-19. But he sent his own kind of wisdom through director M. Night Shyamalan, jokingly telling the audience to get “as drunk as possible” at the afterparty.
Let’s get something straight: Bautista isn’t just biceps and battle scenes. He’s got comedic chops (Drax, anyone?), he can pull off emotional depth (Blade Runner 2049 proved that), and let’s not forget: he’s got the charm.
So maybe Hollywood just needs to look past the muscles and give the man his grand romantic moment. Maybe it’s time for Dave Bautista to walk into a coffee shop, lock eyes with someone over a spilled latte, and make the world believe in love again.
