Dave Bautista Says He’s ‘Killing’ Himself to Maintain 75-Pound Weight Loss

Actor and former WWE star Dave Bautista is opening up about his recent 75-pound weight loss.

“I got really big for a role, and it was uncomfortably big,” Bautista, 55, said during an interview published on Chris Van Vliet ’s YouTube channel on Tuesday, September 10. “I was around 315 pounds, and I put the weight on really fast. … I packed it on with French fries and pancakes.

Bautista noted that the film in question was the 2023 psychological horror film Knock at the Cabin , in which he played Leonard, one of four people trying to convince a family to prevent the apocalypse by sacrificing one of their own.

“Looking back at it, I probably overdid it. I was probably a little too big,” the retired wrestler said. “I put on an uncomfortable amount of weight and it took me forever to shed it off.”

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But shed it off, he did, as Bautista shared that he is now around 240 pounds.

“The more I trimmed down, the better I felt,” he said. “And I also noticed the more I trimmed down, the better I looked on camera and the better I looked next to other actors. … Even at this weight … at 6’4” [and] 240 pounds, next to your typical actor I look like a gorilla, and it’s distracting.”

While Bautista said that some people online have expressed concern for his health due to his slimmed-down physique, he assured fans that he’s still a “large human being” and is “not starving or anything.” He is, however, working hard to keep the weight off.

“I’ll probably lose a few more pounds. I’m basically killing myself to be this trim. I mean, I am training hard,” he said. “My calories are pretty restricted.”

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Bautista noted that he does intermittent fasting and tries not to eat within 3 hours of going to bed.

“It’s a short window,” he said.

Bautista retired from professional wrestling in April 2019. That June, he told Van Vliet , 41, that he would “go broke” before he did another wrestling match.

“This is a real wrestling retirement,” he said at the time. “I am done. My in-ring career is over.”

Van Vliet asked Bautista on Tuesday for his thoughts on John Cena ’s upcoming retirement tour , which is set to kick off in January.

“This is where we’re different. I would never do [that],” Bautista said of the tour. “It would feel [disingenuous] to me. … I see his point where he wants to go around and he wants to personally thank all the fans. There’s just something in me where I couldn’t do it. It would feel uncomfortable to me. Accolades feel uncomfortable to me.”