Dave Bautista had an "emotional breakdown" when he landed the role of Drax the Destroyer in 'Guardians of the Galaxy'.

The 52-year-old actor has played the character in a number of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies and described how getting the part was "life-changing" as he looked to prove himself as an actor following a career in wrestling.

Dave said: "It was months of auditions and screen tests, and flying back and forth to LA, and keeping my fingers crossed. They wouldn't exclude me from the role, but they wanted to audition other people, so I'm just holding on, in the mix. I think I wasn't established as an actor. They still had reservations.

"But when I finally got the role, I had an emotional breakdown. It was life-changing. It was life-altering for me. I had been struggling just to even get auditions. It was like three years after I'd left wrestling. I left wrestling on top. I took a chance on myself, and really struggled for three years.

"If it had gone a different way, I would have been crushed. I would have been devastated. But it literally changed my career. It changed my life."

Dave also opened up on his relationship with director James Gunn and was pleased that the filmmaker was "very interested" in him as a performer despite his lack of acting experience.

He told Digital Spy: "James treated me great from day one. He was just very open-minded in the way he looked at me. He only looked at me as a performer. When I came in and auditioned for him, I don't think he knew anything about professional wrestling, I don't think he [cared]. I could just see he was very interested in my performance.

"He took a lot of very personal interest in me as an actor which was, at that time, something really new to me because people only hired me because I did professional wrestling and built an audience in that."