Dave Bautista has become a figure with a radical diet that made him lose over twenty kilograms after he had gained too much for a role.
Lately, the massive and muscular Dave Bautista is a bit less massive. The reason is a radical weight loss due to a strict diet and many sacrifices that allowed the actor who plays Drax, the former wrestler, to lose over twenty kilograms.
Bautista, whose latest film is the action thriller The Killer’s Game, commented on his weight loss in an interview with Chris Van Vliet, but for months fans had noticed his physical changes, which became a topic of discussion on social media. Bautista explained that the change came from having overdone it with weight gain for the 2023 thriller Knock at the Cabin. After putting on some weight for that role, the actor worked hard to slim down, deciding to make a radical change to his appearance.
“I started to lose weight for a specific reason” he explained. “First of all, I started to slim down because I had gained weight. I had gotten really big for a role, and it was uncomfortably big. For Knock at the Cabin, I gained weight really quickly, reaching about 135 kilograms. I had very little time, so I stuffed myself with fries and pancakes.”
The secret to losing weight
Analyzing his physique, Dave Bautista revealed the advice given to him by director M. Night Shyamalan regarding his size for the role in Knock at the Cabin:
“He said, ‘I don’t want you to look like a weightlifter. I just want you to look like a big guy.’ Looking back now, I probably overdid it, I was probably a bit too big, but at that moment I was just thinking: ‘I need to get big, I need to get big.'”
So the MCU star started a strict diet that led him to lose over 20 kilograms. Even though he might still lose a few more kilos, essentially the actor has achieved a shape that he now intends to maintain by limiting himself to consuming 2500 calories a day. For someone his size, it seems like “nothing,” but Bautista confesses that he feels much better, choosing to continue the strict diet despite the sacrifices required.
“I had added a lot of unpleasant weight and it took me forever to lose it” he explained. “Then, I noticed that the more weight I lost, the better I felt, and I also noticed that the more weight I lost, the better I looked on camera, the better I looked next to other actors. Since people have seen me much bigger over the years, they think I’m anorexic, but I’m just a big human.”