Talk is Jericho with Chris Jericho
Guest: Dave Bautista
Release Date: May 5, 2017
Recap by: Armando G. Ureña, PWPpodcast.com Reporter
DIRECT LINK TO LISTEN/DOWNLOAD
Top Newsworthy Items
– Bautista is interested in working a retirement program with Triple H.
– He misses wrestling but does not miss having to deal with WWE.
– His match with Undertaker at WrestleMania 23 is his favorite WrestleMania match.
Timestamps
00:00: Sponsor Ads
01:08: Podcast Introduction
05:01: Fozzy single “Judas” is played
09:00: Sponsor Ads
11:38: Dave Bautista Interview Part 1
24:40: Sponsor Ads
27:30: Dave Bautista Interview Part 2
49:42: Sponsor Ads
50:47: Dave Bautista Interview Part 3
1:06:22: Sponsor Ads
1:08:21: Dave Bautista Interview Part 4
1:30:45: Sponsor Ads and Closing
Show Highlights/Rundown
Podcast Introduction
It starts off with a clip from the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 featuring Dave Bautista as Drax. Jericho summarizes what can be expected on the show from Bautista, including his experiences in Hollywood, and WWE stories along with if he will be returning. Jericho plugs Fozzy tour dates.
Fozzy’s single “Judas”
I really enjoy this song, and you should take the chance to listen to it on this podcast if you haven’t already. The video is on YouTube, and it is available on iTunes. The song has 250,000+ views in a few days. The general feedback has been that “Judas” is the best Fozzy song to date, and I also agree with that.
Dave Bautista Interview Part 1
Bautista tells the story of his first tattoo. He was 18 and got it on his butt so his dad wouldn’t be able to see it. They talk about tattoos for a bit, including covering them up for gigs. Both Jericho and Bautista have had to use thick makeup to hide tattoos on their hands.
Upon his initial entry into Hollywood, Bautista talked about wanting to establish himself as an actor and build credibility for himself first. Now he feels comfortable pursuing more action star roles that he had initially turned down, feeling he won’t be typecasted. Bautista calls the role of Drax his bread and butter as an actor. Drax being a character in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (GOTG 1) films that will also appear in a future Avengers movie. Bautista is also looking towards making his own projects, and working as a producer, as he looks towards retirement from acting. He says his physique limits his possible roles, and his aging will limit that even further, giving him a smaller window of opportunity for acting.
For the rest of part 1 of the interview, Bautista explains to Jericho some of the things he’s learned about acting over the last seven years. Included, are thinking about your breathing to help match the mood of the scene, and asking plenty of questions to engage yourself in acting.
Dave Bautista Interview Part 2
Part 2 kicks off talking about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. (GOTG2) Jericho asks about the playing the Drax character. Bautista thought the character would be more of a “bad a**” but it ended up being a comedy role 80% of the time. He says that Drax has more action in the next Avengers movie. Bautista says that a series of Black Panther movies will be coming and that he is most excited for the Spider-Man movies. He also tells a story about meeting Robert Downey Jr. at the premiere of Avengers: Age of Ultron. He says RDJ was the only one from the Avengers cast who went out of their way to go up to talk to him and say how much he enjoyed GOTG 1.
Bautista talks about some of the acting in GOTG 1. He says that rehearsals for the sequel took three days while the first movie had weeks of rehearsals. Bautista talks about table reads and how much he doesn’t like them, due to his dyslexia.
They move on to his role in the James Bond movie Spectre. He tells the story of his character’s one line in the movie. They asked him to redub the line “sh*t” so he wouldn’t sound so distinctly American. Bautista says there was supposed to be a punchline from James Bond, “I thought he’d never shut up,” after the character’s defeat but it ended up being cut from the movie. Jericho and Bautista start to talk about James Bond movies in general. Bautista says his favorite Bond film is Goldfinger.
Bautista summarizes the theme of GOTG 2 as family. Jericho asks about what people were expecting from GOTG 1. Bautista says he was nervous about it, since it was an unknown property. Bautista describes his dislike for the Groot character in the GOTG films, because Groot steals a lot of the spotlight for being cute.
Dave Bautista Interview Part 3
Jericho jumps into Blade Runner: 2049 which Bautista acts in. He says the producers liked him for the part, but the director initially did not think he was right for the role. Bautista did a screen test that ended up winning the over the director. Bautista is excited for the role since it is an actor’s role. Jericho asks about being around Harrison Ford. Bautista tells an awkward story about meeting Ford on the set of Blade Runner: 2049, where they met one day and Harrison introduced himself to Bautista a few days later like they never met.
Jericho then segues into Sylvester Stallone and the project Bautista is involved in with him. The project is Escape Plan 2. Bautista loved the set, saying it was one of the best times he has had on a set. Bautista describes Stallone as a good, fun, person. He doesn’t like that film is called “Escape Plan 2” because it feels like a standalone story. Jericho and Bautista talk about Stallone’s acting, saying he is underrated as an actor because of his more generic/bad action films.
Bautista talks about his role in Heist, a movie with Robert DeNiro and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Bautista talks about trying to get a role that would include him in a scene with DeNiro. Due to DeNiro’s people not approving of Bautista, Bautista could not get a role that had a scene he wanted. Though, he stuck with the project, he and Jeffrey Dean Morgan frequently went off script. Neither liked the writing much.
Dave Bautista Interview Part 4
Jericho asks if there is anything coming up for Bautista. Bautista mentions Bushwick, an indie film that did well at the Sundance film festival. Jericho then steers the conversation towards WWE. He asks about his favorite WrestleMania matches. Bautista’s favorite match was with the Undertaker at WrestleMania 23. Bautista talks about his match with Triple H as WrestleMania 21. He says he does not have a good memory of the match, having not slept much a few nights earlier and being in pain.
They go back to the Undertaker match. Bautista feels that’s when he feels he came into his own. Bautista thinks they should have been the main event of the night, not Cena vs Michaels. Both Bautista and Jericho praise the Undertaker as the best big man of all time. Jericho asks if Bautista misses wrestling, to which he says he misses it a lot. Bautista says his next return would be his retirement program. He is interested in working with Triple H due to their history. Though he is not sure if it will be able to happen.
Bautista is a fan of Bray Wyatt. Jericho mentions that Wyatt is the champion right now, indicating that the podcast was recorded between Elimination Chamber and WrestleMania 33. Bautista would also like to work with Titus O’Neil, whether in a tag team or a program. They were friends while Titus was still playing football. Also, Bautista says Titus gives him too much credit for helping him out. Bautista starts to talk about the incident were Titus was suspended for touching Vince McMahon on TV. Bautista encouraged Titus to leave the company after that, saying that reaction by WWE was a slap to the face. He thinks Titus can be just as successful, if not more, doing something else outside of wrestling.
Bautista generally misses entertaining the crowd and having fun with the other wrestlers. Though he does not miss having to deal with the company.
Memorable Quotes:
“From every job that I’ve done, I take away something from it” -Dave Bautista on acting
“He was the only one of the Avengers who went out of his way to come up and meet me, and tell me how much he loved Guardians”- Dave Bautista on meeting Robert Downey Jr. as the Avengers premiere at London
“Groot is gonna steal this whole film, cause now he’s a freaking baby. How can you compete with a baby tree?”- Dave Bautista on Groot
“It’s as close an athlete can be to being a Rockstar”- Dave Bautista on being a Professional Wrestler
Score and Review (9/10)
I loved this podcast. As a fan of comic book films, hearing Bautista tell stories about his experiences working with Marvel was amazing. Bautista was crafty with how he told some of his acting stories, which is great considering some of the films he talked about are still in post-production and have limitations on how much actors can share. Learning about how decorated his filmography is becoming was a high point for me in the podcast.
The Ad breaks and the actual interview were separated by audio clips with Bautista in them from the GOTG 2 trailers. That added an extra layer to this podcast that I loved, and provided a nice shake-up to the usual Talk Is Jericho format. Jericho, intelligently, played Fozzy’s “Judas” to hype the single, the new album, and the tour. Doing that also capitalizes on the large number of downloads the podcast is guaranteed to get, with the guest being an established star like Bautista, whose new Marvel movie is getting its wide release the same day the podcast is being released. Since I like the song, hearing it was another bonus on the podcast.
The WWE stuff was nice. Not quite as interesting as Bautista’s movie career, but that’s understandable given what Bautista has been up to the last several years. The relatively basic career retrospective was decent to hear. I enjoyed listening to his wishes for what he would want to do should he come back. Assuming he returns, for his next run to be his final run I think is a wise decision. My favorite WWE stuff was absolutely Bautista’s support of Titus O’Neil. For someone of Bautista’s stature to be behind Titus is telling of Titus’s hard work, and it makes me hope O’Neil’s current program with Apollo Crew is at least a good one, if not leading to bigger things for Titus.
Overall, an excellent podcast with a wide-range of potential listeners given who the guest is and the timing of the episodes release. Whether you are a wrestling fan, comic book fan, or just a movie fan, this podcast probably has something for you.
In case you missed it, check out last week’s episode of Talk is Jericho with Samoa Joe.
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