Dave Bautista spoke with Playboy ahead of his new film Stuber, opening in theaters tomorrow. Bautista talks about his upbringing and the perception of masculinity and tough guys, and how he worked to fight stereotypes he faced entering the acting world. The former WWE World Champion says his real-life contrasts greatly from his acting roles, including Stuber’s Vic, and says he’s more willing to talk things out and have a debate before resorting to violence.
“Kumail and I joke about this all the time. I’m way more in touch with my feelings than he is, so I’m much more the Stu character than Kumail is. Vic to me is a bad cliché: He’s a John Wayne wannabe, that guy who thinks that boys don’t cry; you gotta live your life a certain way; if you got a problem, duke it out. But that’s not me at all. I believe firmly that you can have confrontation without violence, even if it ends up with agreeing to disagree and going our own separate ways. I’m more than willing to have a debate. If you say something I think is rude or you go to a certain place, then it may go south. [laughs] But I believe you can figure out a lot of things verbally. And not everybody is 6’4” and 265 pounds—I get that. But being willing to defend someone vocally is a form of bravery.”
Bautista also talked about men taking responsibility for their actions, and spoke about friend / director James Gunn’s public firing over past social media posts. Bautista said those types of things might not be acceptable anymore, but Gunn is a good person and he apologized for his past because he realized he might have been too offensive. He noted that the bigger point in all of it is that a lot of taboo material that used to be acceptable is no longer tolerated, but society needs to get back to a place where they can talk things out.
“If you go back to comedians 20, 30 years ago, would they hold up today? Not a fucking chance. But back then they were funny, shocking, relevant; they talked about taboo subjects, but it was okay to talk about those things. Now it’s not okay and you’re getting judged when you talk about them, which has put us in a really bad place. If there’s an issue, especially if it’s an issue that is causing problems, the only way to solve it is to fucking talk about it. If everyone’s afraid to talk about it then we’re not getting anywhere. You’ve got all these people who are so self-righteous; as soon as you start talking about something they start pointing fingers. And then when everybody’s pointing fingers, all of a sudden you’re a target, which is a bad place to be. I feel like we’ve stepped back in time. We shouldn’t be so goddamn judgmental of each other. We should be able to talk.”
Bautista explained how hard it was for his first agent to get him into rooms for auditions, but people meet him and realize he’s a nice guy. He went on to explain that he gets labeled a lot and people might have a problem with who he is, but those are people he doesn’t want in his life.
“Well, I’m nicer than I am smart. [laughs] But I don’t mind being labeled that way. I generally like people. It’s okay to be fucking nice, it’s okay to love other human beings. And if anybody thinks that because I wear my heart on my sleeve, and because my mom’s a lesbian, or that I hug my best friend and tell him I love him, if they think I’m less of a man because of that? I just say, Fuck you, dude, I don’t want you in my life.”
