DAY OF THE DAVE

Making deals, crushing it at the gym, cooking for friends, and pissing off fans—that’s a Tuesday for Dave Bautista, who defied the odds to become a box offce monster.

- JESSE WILL

CROWDS DIG DAVE BAUTISTA. During his run as a WWE pro wrestler, the six-time champion got pretty hooked on hearing the roar of 70,000 fans. His ears are still ringing. “Nothing will replace that electricity,” says Bautista, who stepped away from the sport (aside from some cameos) in 2012. In his unlikely second act, Bautista has found himself a Hollywood heavyweight — literally — a 6'6, 270-pound star known for playing the soulfully deadpan Drax the Destroyer in Marvel films like Guardians of the Galaxy and The Avengers: Infinity War. Between the wrestling and Comic-Con crowds, Bautista is now recognized instantly in airports and health food stores across the planet. So you might think that after a pandemic year lying low in his Tampa, Florida, home, the dude might be itching to get back in the mix. To jump back into being adored, you know?

Not quite. “This is like, my jam!” says Bautista. “Quarantine is my shit. I’m socially awkward. I miss going to movie theaters and taking my family to baseball games, but I don’t mind being alone.”

Bautista won’t be alone for long. On May 21, he plays a mercenary in the zombie heist flick Army of the Dead, a big-budget summer movie on Netflix from director Zack Snyder (300). In October, Bautista stars in the sci-fi blockbuster Dune as the sadistic villain Glossu Rabban, reuniting with director Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049). And later this year, he’ll don Drax’s greenish-blue makeup again to shoot