Dave Bautista Improvised Drax’s Funniest Line in ‘Avengers: Infinity War’

We don’t always think about massively musclebound action stars being good with a laugh line. Luckily, giants like The Rock, John Cena and even Shaquille O’Neal remind us on a regular basis. 

Dave Bautista, who plays Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and in Avengers: Infinity War, is both a good actor (seriously, his brief appearance in Blade Runner 2049 is striking for how subtle he is) and apparently a pretty funny dude. He proved that during the filming of the movie, reports Yahoo Entertainment.

Many of the movie’s better lines were improvised, but Bautista’s was clearly carefully thought out, according to Yahoo’s report:

Then there’s Dave Bautista, the giant of a man behind Drax, who is quickly emerging as one of the funniest Avengers/Guardians, thanks to laugh-landing lines like, “Why is Gamora?,” which perfectly breaks the tension during a heated standoff between Iron Man and Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) on Titan.

“The script only said, ‘Where is Gamora?’ ‘I’ll do you even better: Who is Gamora?’ And then one day Bautista just goes, ‘I’ll do you one better: Why is Gamora?’” Markus recalled. “It’s like, ‘OK, you’re very good at your job.’”

Seriously, he is good at his job. Bautista has said, however, he didn’t exactly understand the character at first. “So I remember reading” the script for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Bautista told CBR.com in 2017, “and I’m just sitting there not laughing. Like, wow, it was disappointing because I thought Drax was going to be so much more.”

“When we sat down for the table read,” he continued, “is when it clicked. It clicked in my head. For one, I could hear everybody doing their own parts, and it was just so funny and deep, and some of it sad.
” Bautista went on to say everything really began to make more sense to him when people laughed at his lines—the character clicked in place.

Twitter has recognized more than one instance of why Drax is so much fun and Bautista is so good at playing him.

https://twitter.com/AizatDin_/status/992663563318669314

Bautista wasn’t the only actor improvising, either. Tom Holland made up Spider-Man’s poignant final line, spoken to Tony (SPOILER ALERT): “I don’t feel so good, Mr. Stark. I don’t want to go.” 

One Twitter user neatly broke down the movie’s off-the-cuff dialogue.

We’d rather just think about the unintentional wit of Drax f, rather than the movie’s unusually downbeat ending. 

If he ever comes back, let’s hope the writers give Dave Bautista more rope to play with his oddly lovable yet deadly character.

[Yahoo]