Dave Bautista Says James Gunn’s A Control Freak, Zack Snyder Is More Flexible

James Gunn and Dave Bautista are very close friends, having been known to wax lyrical about each other regularly, but the pair clearly aren’t above a bit of good natured ribbing, either, after the actor described his Guardians of the Galaxy director as a control freak when comparing him to Zack Snyder.

Bautista was ready to walk away from the Marvel Cinematic Universe entirely after Gunn was fired from the helm of Vol. 3, but admitted that he’s proud of Disney for publicly admitting they made a mistake and reinstating the filmmaker. As for Gunn, he said he fought hard to cast the former WWE star as Drax in the first Guardians, and even spoke at length about the qualities that he felt made him Hollywood’s best wrestler-turned-actor.

However, the Blade Runner 2049 star clearly enjoyed the increased level of on-camera freedom he was given while working with Snyder on Netflix’s upcoming zombie action blockbuster Army of the Dead, by revealing that Gunn tends to be very particular when it comes to relaying instructions to his cast members.

“James would be much more, I feel like he’s much more involved with performance. I think. Um, I have a lot more flexibility with Zack. James is a control freak. Have you guys all met with him? He’s very much a control freak. With guys like James Gunn, like I was giving this performance once and he was really upset, not because of the way I was performing. He was upset because where my eyes were looking. So he told me to pick a spot. I swear to god, pick a spot, focus on it and don’t move my eyes. With all these guys they’re just really great at one thing. Well, not one thing, because really, I think passionate about like certain things, we just kind of draw from them and learn from them.”

Snyder has become famed for the atmosphere he cultivates on his sets, with almost every big name actor to have worked with him being full of nothing but praise for the guy, and the Spectre star is just the latest addition to that list. As for Gunn, the Guardians of the Galaxy collaborators will no doubt be thrilled they get to reunite on the MCU’s cosmic threequel when production starts before the end of the year, even if scheduling conflicts ruled Dave Bautista out of an even swifter reunion on The Suicide Squad.