Prior to its May 5 US release, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 has already grossed over $132 million in some European territories and Australia. In addition, critics seem impressed with what they saw at the early screenings. However, at first glance, one of the cast members wasn't over the moon about the script.
Dave Bautista, who’s returning as Drax the Destroyer in the latest James Gunn flick, revealed during a recent interview with CBR that his first read-through of the script left him a bit disappointed:
I was excited about the script, [but] when I first read the script, I wasn't crazy about my part. It went in a different direction than what I thought they were going to go with Drax. That's just because I was expecting one thing and got another. So I was a little bit thrown off at first.
The wrestler-turned-actor added that while as he read the dialogue, he didn't get the jokes and didn't find them funny. He also felt that Drax’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 role wasn't significant enough:
So I remember reading, and I'm just sitting there not laughing. Like, wow, it was disappointing, because I thought Drax was going to be so much more.
However, Bautista had a change of heart after he sat down with other cast members for the first table read:
When we sat down for the table read 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. But also, when I would say my lines and people would laugh, it would kind of start to make sense.
Drax's jokes apparently made sense to critics, who are singing the character’s praises. They also speak highly of his chemistry with Mantis, a new member of the team portrayed by Pom Klementieff. Bautista was immediately confident about it.
During the interview, the actor revealed that although he read with a number of actresses, the 31-year-old Klementieff was the only one he "just connected with emotionally". He said that they had a similar emotional range, as she too "wears her heart on her sleeve…and…has a knack of being able to deliver a joke in a deadpan manner". So they meshed well.
