Over time, wrestler-turned-actor Dave Bautista has proven his dramatic chops by working with several auteur filmmakers, the foremost of them being Denis Villeneuve, with whom Bautista worked on Blade Runner 2049. Now, Bautista is collaborating with Villeneuve again on the most ambitious movie of the filmmaker's career, a film adaptation of Frank Herbert's seminal sci-fi novel, Dune. In an interview with Collider, Bautista revealed how he had been blown away by the script for Dune.

"I was blown away [by the script]. I was blown away. It's weird, because when I read Blade Runner, when I read Dune, it's hard for me to know what their visions are. Especially what Denis' vision is, because the worlds they create are just so enormous. I don't think I could ever direct a film like that. My talent would lie in a very contained drama, that's what I would like to do, that's what I aspire to do. But creating these-even like James [Gunn]-these universes, these galaxies, they're just so far over my head. So I read it and thought it was beautiful, I was emotionally invested in the script and the characters, but I don't think my imagination stretches that far to create these worlds."

In the upcoming Dune, Dave Bautista plays the role of Glossu Rabban, the savage brute of a nephew of the main antagonist of the story, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. The trailer for the movie has shown Bautista in pale white makeup on the desert planet Arrakis. According to the actor, he desperately wanted to be a part of the project when it was first announced, and was overjoyed when Villeneuve personally reached out to offer him the role of Glossu Rabban.

"We tracked that movie for months because I wanted to be a part of it so bad. I never reached out, because I don't want to be that guy, like 'Hey, Denis, is there a part for me?' I never wanted to be that guy. But he actually called me, he didn't say anything like 'so there's this part...' He just straight up asked me if I would come and play this part. I was so taken aback I didn't even know what to say, except for, obviously, 'yes.' Moments like that really gauge how far I've come, as an actor. There's a lot of pride in it for me that a director like Denis would call like that and offer me a role in a film that I know is going to be enormous."

Directed by Denis Villeneuve, Dune stars Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, Zendaya as Chani, Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides, Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Javier Bardem as Stilgar, Chang Chen as Dr. Wellington Yueh, Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Dr. Liet Kynes, Charlotte Rampling as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Dave Bautista as Glossu Rabban, David Dastmalchian as Piter De Vries, Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho, Stephen Henderson as Thufir Hawat and Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck. The film arrives in theaters and on HBO Max on October 1. This news originated at Collider.