Dave Bautista, 55, reveals his incredible body transformation after wrestler turned actor dropped FOUR stone to become ‘the lightest I’ve been since I was 19 years old’
He’s known for his massive, muscular physique, but Dave Bautista has left fans in awe after losing weight for his new role.
The professional wrestler turned actor has lost 45 pounds in preparation for his starring role as a skilled hitman in his latest film The Killer’s Game.
Bautista’s new look was clearly visible during her red carpet appearance at the Toronto Film Festival premiere of The Last Showgirl on September 6.
“I’m getting super tight, this is probably the lightest I’ve been since I was 19 years old,” he told YouTuber Chris Van Vliet.
Bautista, 55, began cutting weight after filming the M. Night Shyamalan thriller Knock At The Cabin in 2022 and admits he’s lighter now than he was in his early wrestling days, when he wrestled under the name Deacon Batista.
He’s known for his massive, muscular physique, but Dave Bautista has left fans in awe after losing weight for his new role
“The heaviest I’ve ever been is 370 pounds (26 st). When I started Deacon, I was about 325 pounds (23 st),” he said.
‘For most of my wrestling career I weighed about 290 pounds (21st). Now I weighed about 240 pounds (17st).
“And I went to Knock at the Cabin a year and a half ago, I was 315 pounds (23 st). And that’s when the nightmare started.”
Bautista previously shared a stunning throwback to the time when he was 16 years old and didn’t have any of the tattoos that now grace his body.
In his thirties he began a successful career in professional wrestling and MMA, before becoming a movie star at the age of 45 in Guardians Of The Galaxy.
As he grew older, his arms and torso became increasingly covered in tattoos, including the Greek and Philippine flags in honor of his heritage.
But in the flashback he posted to Instagram this week, he stood in front of an ocean view in a swimsuit, showing that he was wearing no body art at the time.
The photo was taken at the end of a difficult childhood full of poverty and crime, during which he himself was arrested in his early teens.
Bautista previously shared an astonishing throwback to the time when he was 16 years old and didn’t have any of the tattoos that now cover his body
He had a difficult childhood, living in some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in and around Washington, DC; photographed on Instagram in recent years
Bautista had a difficult childhood and lived in some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in and around Washington DC
When he was a little boy, a body was found on his front lawn and he witnessed a shooting victim die in the street in front of his house.
He, his sister and a few other neighborhood kids “all stood around and watched this poor man die,” Dave later recalled in his memoir. “I think some of us were even telling jokes.”
The actor confessed: ‘When I was 13, I started getting into more and more trouble for skipping school. I was also arrested for minor things. I was given punishment or sent to juvenile detention, but the punishment was not severe; I never spent more than a day in jail.’
Bautista insisted that he “didn’t steal or break the law to get revenge on anybody or because I was angry or anything. I stole because all my friends were doing it. It wasn’t a big deal. It just wasn’t unusual. It was what you did.”
He added: ‘It wasn’t like I was stealing cars or doing drugs or anything really, really bad. But I was definitely a thug and everyone was afraid of where I was going.’
He also slowly built an acting career in the mid-2000s, culminating in his rise to international movie stardom in the 2014 film Guardians Of The Galaxy (pictured)
At the age of 17, he struck out on his own and made a career as a bouncer in a nightclub. At work, he got into a brawl, which resulted in another arrest.
He eventually escaped poverty in his thirties and became a huge success in professional wrestling, becoming a four-time world heavyweight champion.
In the mid-2000s, he also slowly built an acting career, culminating in his international film fame thanks to the 2014 film Guardians Of The Galaxy.
Dave played the role of the towering Drax The Destroyer in a cast that included Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel.
The film launched Bautista’s lucrative career in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which included Avengers: Endgame, the second highest-grossing film of all time.
He has also worked on a number of other franchises, including the Knives Out film series and the Dune films starring Timothée Chalamet.
Bautista currently has a wide range of projects in the pipeline, including a role as Beowulf in the upcoming film Grendel, based on a novel that turns the Old English epic on its head, telling the story from the perspective of the evil monster.