Featured Image Credit: GQ
Topics: News, Celebrity, Dave Bautista
Charisa Bossinakis
Dave Bautista has broken down all of his tattoos, and it's a fair few, to say the least.
During an interview with GQ, the wrestler turned actor explained the ones that hurt, the ones he regrets and the ones he loves.
The Glass Onion star admitted: “If people ask me how many tattoos I have, I typically say, ‘Like three’, because most are just all connected together.”
Bautista said he’s spent more than 50 hours alone getting his back tatts done, as he had to complete it ‘in big chunks’ to allow himself to heal during his wrestling career.
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As he let his back sit for so long, the Guardians of the Galaxy star revealed he had to return to the parlor to retrace his ink.
And whenever he got injured, he returned to the ring with a new tattoo.
He added: “You can kind of date my wrestling career through the tattoos on my action figures.”
When asked about his first tattoo, Bautista usually ‘breaks out in sweats’.
He disclosed he visited a local tattoo parlor when he was 18 years old, back when ‘tattoos weren’t as common’.
He said while chuckling: “There was this old biker named Rick, who gave me my first tattoo, and it was this heart that looked like it was cement and around it, it said, ‘Heart of Stone’.”
However, since then, he had the roots of a cherry blossom tree cover it up.
Bautista revealed that he has a lot of ‘cover ups’, which he admits is all ‘part of the story’.
He also had a design put over a marking on his forearm because the original ink was linked to a friend who said homophobic things and Bautista didn't want to be associated to that person anymore.
The actor also showed the movies he’s paid homage to, which include Avengers and Spectre.
But when it comes to his favorite ink, the 53-year-old said it had to be the portrait of his three dogs on his upper thigh.
He's still got enough room to honour his other newer pups.
He said the designs on the back of his legs as well as his feet were the most painful to get.
Probably one of the more surprising tattoos the actor bears is his Winnie the Pooh ink.
He explained that the idea originated during the press junket for his film My Spy.
While he and his 14-year-old-ago co-star Chloe Coleman were playing a game of ‘True or False’, Coleman was asked if Bautista had a Winnie the Pooh tattoo.
He said: “Chloe said, ‘Well I know most people might think that Dave is big and mean and scary, so people wouldn’t think he has a Winnie the Pooh tattoo, but I know Dave - he’s like the sweetest guy ever and he’s just a big teddy bear.”
He continued: “She said, ‘Yes, I think Dave has a Winnie the Pooh tattoo, and she got the buzzer ‘Wrong’. And she was like, ‘Oh’, she was so disappointed, and I was disappointed for her and I said, ‘I don’t have one, but because I love you so much, I’m going to get one.”
And the rest is history.