Dave Bautista has credited landing a role in Guardians of the Galaxy as being a turning point in his career as it helped people to "look past my exterior."
The actor, who plays Drax the Destroyer in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, told RTÉ Entertainment that the biggest challenge in his career so far has been to get people to look past his physical appearance and see him as an actor.
Watch our interview with Dave Bautista:
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"The biggest challenge of my career so far has been to get people to look past this, it's not an easy thing, it sounds odd but when I first left wrestling to come in to films I couldn't even get auditions," he said.
"People just had no interest and they couldn't see past me being big and muscular and my professional wrestling background – they just couldn't see past it.
"Then it was the first Guardians I think that opened a lot of people's eyes and saw that I really wanted to be an actor. So I think that's been the big challenge, just to get people to look past my exterior."
Bautista can currently be seen in Final Score, where he takes the lead in the action extravaganza and has to work against the clock to save a football stadium full of people who do not know they are being held hostage.
The former professional wrestler said he is now happy to be seen as an action star, having fought against those roles when he first made the move to acting as he didn't want to be type cast.
"I like to do across the board stuff," Bautista told RTÉ Entertainment. "I originally set out just to be an actor, I was very much against being classed as an action guy because I felt like I was going to get type-cast into that mould and it was an easy mould for me to fit into I think."
"So I really wanted to focus on acting, and dramatic acting in particular, and those are the roles I fought to get, and now I'm kind of fighting to get the action hero roles," he added.
Final Score is available on Sky Movies and in cinemas now.
