Dave Bautista says his dream role would be playing Ernest Hemingway: 'I could do him justice'

• Dave Bautista's dream role would be Ernest Hemingway.
• That's right - the author of literary classics like "The Old Man and the Sea."
• "His ideas are intriguing to me," Bautista told Polygon.

Dave Bautista has been adamant during the press tour for his Netflix movie "Army of the Dead" that he's looking to stretch his abilities as an actor going forward - even saying that 2023's "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" will be his final time playing the Marvel character Drax.

So what would be his dream role? Wait for it...

He wants to play Ernest Hemingway.

The former WWE star and actor, known best for his tough guy roles, believes he could pull off playing the legendary author, known for his adventurous hobbies and hard drinking ways.

"If I could play any character, I still think it would be him," Bautista told gaming website Polygon in a recent interview. "I think I could do him justice."

"I think he's so interesting, everything about his life, and the way he lived, and also the way he died," Bautista continued. "It's just very intriguing, his ideas are intriguing to me."

If Bautista ends up portraying the author behind such classics as "The Old Man and the Sea" and "A Farewell to Arms," he'd join a group of actors who have already had the honor.

Actors such as Chris O'Donnell (1996's "In Love and War"), Corey Stoll (2011's "Midnight in Paris"), and Clive Owen (2012's "Hemingway & Gellhorn") have all played a version of the complex man.

Along with Hemingway writing some of the greatest American works of all time, the Nobel Prize-winning author also had a life worthy of an epic biopic.

Married four times, Hemingway served in World War I, covered the Spanish Civil War and World War II as a journalist (the latter of which he began fighting with allies and received the Bronze Star), fancied bull fights and safaris, and later in life lived in the Florida Keys and Cuba, which inspired his writing from the 1930s to 1950s. Hemingway died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1961.

Along with his interest to play Hemingway, Bautista said he also wants to play the DC Comic villain Bane. The actor said he once demanded in a meeting at Warner Bros., which owns the comics brand, that he wants to play the character.

Bautista's upcoming projects include the sequel to Rian Johnson's "Knives Out," out in 2022, and Denis Villeneuve's "Dune," out October 1.