Skip to main content

In Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Dave Bautista helps save the universe as Drax. In real life, he’s just as vulnerable as everyone else. Bautista is toughing it out in quarantine during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and he’s struggling to take care of his loved ones too.

Dave Bautista | Rich Polk/Getty Images for IMDb

Bautista was a guest on Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast on May 5. He updated Rosenbaum and their fans about how he’s doing and how he’s helping his mother through this too. 

Dave Bautista is struggling with anxiety

Bautista was a wall in the wrestling ring, and he plays tough guys in the movies like Marvel’s Drax and other action heroes. He’s trying to keep his anxiety in perspective, but he shared that he is struggling. 

“It’s been a little rough for me to talk about because I don’t want people to have the perception that it’s fake anxiety and fake concern because I’m really fortunate right now,” Bautista. “It’s almost like I prepped for this for years, not intentionally but I’m very fortunate right now.”

Marvel's Avengers: Infintiy War - Dave Bautista and Chris Pratt
Dave Bautista and Chris Pratt | Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios

Bautista is well stocked in his Tampa, Florida home, but he’s still feeling it emotionally.

“I’m not suffering personally from this but I am still suffering from horrible anxiety,” he said. “Some days I just wake up and I don’t want to get out of bed. I don’t even want to wake up. It’s just depressing as hell.”

Dave Bautista feels for the less fortunate

The fact that even Baustista feels anxiety over the virus puts it in perspective for him. He worries about the people who don’t even have the resources he has to get through this.

“Then I think to myself, I’m feeling like this and I’m fortunate,” Bautista said. “How are people who are suffering, who are losing everything they have and their families are going hungry and they can’t put food on the table, they don’t have access to food or they’ve just run out of money. How are they dealing with this? I don’t feel like I have the right to complain but it’s killing me. It hurts. Personally it hurts.”

He’s sharing his resources with family

The greatest shortage during the pandemic has been toilet paper. It’s more valuable than Marvel’s Infinity Stones. Bautista has shared his with family, but he doesn’t have enough to go around.

“I know this sounds like a petty thing but it broke my heart,” Bautista said. “I had to send my mom toilet paper. My mom didn’t have toilet paper.”

Dave Bautista
Dave Bautista | Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

The story of Bautista’s mother at the supermarket showed him what shopping is like for non-celebrities during the shortage.

She’s been going to the store and waiting in line in San Francisco to get toilet paper. They won’t tell her before she goes in. She has to wait in line to go in. They won’t tell her if they have toilet paper in stock or not. They will just have her wait in line. She goes in and she doesn’t have it. For weeks or whatever she’s been without toilet paper so I had to ship her out. It breaks my heart that I have to send my mom toilet paper. That seems like kind of a petty thing.

Dave Bautista, Inside of You podcast, 5/5/2020