Dave Bautista tried “for years” to play a zombie on The Walking Dead

Guardians of the Galaxy star Dave Bautista recently revealed to Empire that he’s been trying “for years” to snag a role as a zombie on AMC’s The Walking Dead. The topic came up while he was discussing his role in Zach Snyder’s upcoming post-apocalyptic zombie heist flick Army Of The Dead, slated for release this year on Netflix.

As it turns out, Bautista is a huge zombie fan, so of course he wanted to be on The Walking Dead. “I said I would come and play a zombie for free, but they said, ‘You’re too big!'” he revealed.

At 6’6” and a former pro wrestler, Bautista is a pretty bulky guy. I guess they didn’t want zombies that looked too jacked?

Why Dave Bautista deserves a role on The Walking Dead

But that’s silly. If our world descended into a zombie apocalypse right now, surely some big worked-out guys would get bitten. There can be some hulking zombis shuffling around.

And in any case, the possible weirdness of seeing a zombie of Bautista’s size is no reason to turn the Dave Bautista away. He’s Drax, after all. Hide his bulk with baggy clothes or something if you’re worried about it.

As a The Walking Dead fan myself, I think seeing a Bautista zombie, or just a zombie of his size, would be cool. Over the years, the zombies have become secondary characters in the series, so imagine the group’s surprise if they were faced with a zombie so imposing it was nigh-impossible to kill.

I think AMC is goofing here, but that’s okay, because Bautista got to experience a taste of the undead life in Snyder’s Army of the Dead. As he told Entertainment Weekly, he initially turned the role down but changed his mind after reading the script.

Fans of Bautista can check out Army of the Dead later this year on Netflix, and of course, patiently wait until February 2022 for his role in Thor: Love and Thunder, which involves Thor (Chris Hemsworth) joining the Guardians of the Galaxy, at least for a little while.

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h/t Digital Spy