Batista Says James Gunn Is A ‘Control Freak’ Compared To Zack Snyder

Former WWE Superstar Batista has certainly made a name for himself in Hollywood thanks to his portrayal of Drax The Destroyer in The Guardians Of The Galaxy and The Avengers: Infinity War films. He has worked extensively with James Gunn as the director in The Guardians Of The Galaxy films and is well aware of how he works.

Batista is now working with Zack Snyder for Army Of The Dead and it seems it is a completely different experience for him but also has similarities as well.

While speaking to Screen Rant, Batista compared James Gunn and Zack Snyder as directors. Batista said that Gunn is more of a control freak while he has a lot more freedom when working with Zack Snyder.

I think that James is much more involved with our performance. I think I have a lot more flexibility with Zack.  James is a control freak. Have you guys met him? Have you talked to him? He’s very much a control freak. Which I don’t mind, he’s a great director, like he’s a brilliant director and he’s a brilliant storyteller. So I’m okay to get myself over like that because I trust him. Zack just seems to be willing to give you much more freedom and flexibility and you know when he’s happy with something because he’ll say cut a certain way. Or he’ll just, you can see it when he doesn’t. He doesn’t give you a whole lot of emotion. You’ll just look at him and he’ll shake his head and you can tell when he’s happy or something. Every once in a while I feel self-conscious. I always care about my performance, so sometimes I’ll go to ask him what he thinks and he’ll just turn to you and go “it’s perfect.”

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But something that I’ve seen with James Gunn, I was giving this performance once and he was, I think, upset, not because of my performance, but he was upset with where my eyes were. He told me to pick a spot and focus on it and don’t move my eyes. And also directors like Denis. Denis has a vision and doesn’t want you to stray from it, which is very helpful for me because he brought out some performances in me that I didn’t think I was capable of because of his directing me to go a certain way. Like my small role in Blade Runner. I show up to do that role a certain way, and when I got there I realized it was all wrong because he had me do everything different down to the way I walked. I got so much love for that small little role and I have to give credit to him because of the way he directed me to perform. I like to find these guys who’re just really good at one thing. Not good at just one thing, but passionate about certain things and just kind of draw from and learn from them.

Batista is set to portray Drax once again in Thor: Love and Thunder before working under James Gunn again for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which is set to release in 2023. Army Of The Dead will be releasing on May 21st 2021. We will have to see how the film turns out to be.