As impressive as Hulk Hogan might have been in Suburban Commando, Rian Johnson is naming Dave Bautista as the best wrestler-turned-actor in Hollywood. Recently, Johnson was able to work with Bautista for the Knives Out sequel Knives Out: A Glass Onion Mystery. The film is now available on Netflix where it’s been garnering strong reviews, ranking high with both critics and audiences alike at Rotten Tomatoes; its Tomatometer score and audience score are both sitting at 93%.
A lot of the praise for Glass Onion is going to its ensemble cast, and Bautista has been a standout performer for many. Speaking about the film in a new interview with The Atlantic, Johnson notes how Bautista was also the actor who surprised him most of all with his performance. Bautista’s character was originally written as someone much smaller who was “overcompensating,” but Johnson was enamored by the casting once Bautista’s name was brought up.
Johnson has been so impressed with Bautista that he’s predicting more good things to come for the former WWE Superstar. When interviewer David Sims referred to Bautista as “low-key the greatest wrestler-to-actor ever,” Rian Johnson had this to say in response.
