Dave Bautista says his 'Blade Runner 2049' performance finally made Hollywood 'see past my physicality'

• Bautista says his role in "Blade Runner 2049" showed Hollywood he was more than just an action star.
• "[It] opened up some eyes and people started looking at me differently," he told Uproxx.
• He believes being a former WWE star led to filmmakers thinking he was an "arrogant prick."

Though it was playing Drax in 2014's "Guardians of the Galaxy" that brought Dave Bautista legitimate acting fame, the former WWE star believes it was the role of quiet replicant Sapper Morton in the opening of 2017's "Blade Runner 2049" that finally got him credibility in Hollywood.

"That was the opportunity that I was looking for because I don't get offered roles like that a lot. At that point [in 2016], nobody was offering me roles like that," Bautista recently told Uproxx.

"It was hard for people to see past my physicality and see that I actually wanted to… I used to tell people when I was just coming up, even after I got Drax, I was like I just really want to do some acting. I want to be a better actor. I want to do some drama. People would kind of giggle at me," he continued.

Bautista said even his agent at that time was confused by what his goal was. But the performance as Morton changed things.

"[It] opened up some eyes and people started looking at me differently," he said.

He certainly made "Blade Runner 2049" director Denis Villeneuve a believer. Villeneuve has since cast Bautista in his highly anticipated next movie, a remake of "Dune."

And in Zack Snyder's upcoming Netflix zombie-heist movie "Army of the Dead," Bautista brings some layers to his mercenary character. Though he plays the tough-guy leader and gets into constant scraps with zombies, his character is also grieving the loss of his wife and trying to protect his daughter throughout all the chaos around him.

Looking back on his career trajectory, he told Uproxx's Mike Ryan that he thinks a lack of belief in his acting abilities by some filmmakers may have come from the fact that he was a WWE star.

"There's a bad stigma that comes along with professional wrestling and I think sometimes people are worried about bringing that to their film set," he said. "They don't know if I'm going to be an arrogant prick or I'm just going to be Mister Full-of-Testosterone and come in and just be kind of a dick on set."

But like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson before him, Bautista is proving that he's much more than an imposing figure who once took bumps for a living.