Former WWE star Dave Bautista (Batista) says He was Legit Broke When filming Marvel's the Guardians of the Galaxy
"For people to really understand how much my life has changed, they would have to understand where I came from, what I went through when I was in wrestling, what I left behind to take a chance on going into acting," Bautista told IGN. "And when I got the role of Drax in Guardians, I barely worked in three years. So I'd really left wrestling behind and I could have gone back to WWE with my tail between my legs, but I still [would] have been just stuck in a place that I never would have gone any further, but I just took a chance. And then when I got [cast], not only because I was broke, [everything changed]. When I say broke, my house was foreclosed, I had nothing, man. I sold all my stuff. I sold everything that I made from [when] I was wrestling. I had issues with the IRS. I was just lost in everything."
Bautista went on to explain how once people saw him as Drax, his life was completely transformed. "When Guardians came out and people saw me as Drax, it just started opening doors," Bautista said. "So Drax didn't just change my career. It literally changed the trajectory of my life. My life just got better and I just became more successful. And that's when things really just started to seem like surreal. It wasn't many years [earlier] when I was just like borrowing money to pay for food, pay for rent. Borrow money to buy my kids Christmas presents. It wasn't long before all that stuff [had happened]. So it happened for me fast, which made it seem even that much more surreal. But it did, it changed my life. It gave me a life."
- Interview with IGN
