Growing up in north county, Stevens was raised by his mother, a nurse at rehabilitation facilities in the area, and his father, who worked the assembly line at the General Motors plant in St. Louis. After that factory closed in 1981, the elder Stevens signed on at the GM plant in Wentzville.
Stevens can be cagey. He declines to state his true age on the grounds that doing so could hurt his screen career. "We try to keep everything we can on that young level," he says. "Because if we don't, the young guys will take your jobs. And I'm so close now." Nor will Stevens disclose his relationship status, or whether he's been married or if he has any kids.
"I keep my personal life away from my business life," he says. When actors mix the two, "it's a recipe for disaster."
At the public high school he attended — whose name, naturally, he doesn't want to disclose — he says that he was not a jock, nor did he take part in plays or musicals. "I was a nerd," Stevens recalls. "I was a skinny little dweeb until my senior year."
Stevens starting lifting weights in his junior year, after years of being picked on by bigger boys. "The same guys who were picking on me, now I'm in the gym with them," he says. "After a couple summers, I was having those muscle growth spurts. By the time I got out of school, I was not picked on."
After high school, Stevens started working at local gyms, including Bally's, so he could continue weight-lifting. He got into pro wrestling after a friend began taking him to shows at the South Broadway Athletic Club, south of downtown St. Louis. One of the wrestlers began urging him to get into the ring and give it a try.
Stevens at first refused.
"'I can't get up there,'" he recalls, chuckling. But after his first match, some time in the 1980s, he thought, "'I can do this.' It was that opportunity."
Stevens wrestled professionally for nearly two decades under various names, including Atomic Dogg, as well as his real name, Steven Sharp.
Stevens moved up from the St. Louis wrestling scene in the late 1990s to World Championship Wrestling, which was bought out in 2000s by World Wrestling Entertainment. A mishap in 2014, in which Stevens landed outside the ring on hard concrete, seriously hurting his hip, led him to quit wrestling.
Stevens started his acting career with TV commercials and small roles in shows including Empire, The Walking Dead and Chicago P.D. He's since graduated to a slew of increasingly challenging parts in independent films that have him sharing the screen with such established screen actors as Michael Pare, Kate Mara and Ellen Page.
In the months ahead, you'll be able to catch Stevens' growing body of work via the various internet-streaming services that have upended Hollywood and transformed the filmmaking industry. He's set to appear in four feature films due to come out between now and the end of the year, while acting in five more.
Stevens' intense work ethic and relentless focus on his career have placed him on the radar of some of Hollywood's top casting directors. In April, he was asked to audition for a role in an upcoming Clint Eastwood film, making it to the final round of two.
In the end, Stevens didn't land the role, but the experience left him pumped for the year ahead.
"I definitely see it as next year will be my year, when I start becoming that name people will say, 'Well, we can't get Terry Crews because he's like $10 million, but we can get Bishop Stevens,'" Stevens says. "'We can get him for $1 million.'"
He's not afraid of being typecast. "If you got a tight end in football, OK, is it bad for him to be known as one of the best tight ends in the business?" Stevens asks. "Exactly."
Plenty of well-known movie actors have been typecast in their careers — John Wayne, Danny Glover, Clint Eastwood himself. Dwayne Johnson, better known as The Rock, he notes, pretty much plays himself in every movie.
"We all grew up watching him wrestle," Stevens says of the superstar. "All his characters are pretty much the same that he did at some point in his wrestling career. You never see The Rock try to play a Tom Cruise. You never see The Rock trying to play a Denzel Washington-type role. And one or two times when you try to go that way, you fail. I play myself."
He adds, "If you're looking for the tough, big, bald-head black guy, whatever else that plays them, it's Bishop. 'He does it, we already know.'"
Indeed, if there is any precedent for the kind of career Stevens could have, it's The Rock. The retired WWE superstar was Hollywood's second-highest paid actor last year, pulling down an estimated $65 million. He's not alone: Also cashing big movie paychecks last year were pro wrestling icons Dave Bautista and John Cena.
Los Angeles filmmaker Massimiliano "Max" Cerchi thinks Stevens has all the tools for stardom. Cerchi, who cast Stevens as a police captain in the upcoming thriller Lockdown, says he was impressed with Stevens' work ethic and natural talent.
"He is a nice guy. Very down to earth," Cerchi says. "A good person. He did a good job, he didn't complain too much. Actors always complain. But he did a good job, and I would love to work with him for our next movie."
Cerchi, who's been making films for nearly 25 years, says it remains to be seen how far Stevens can get in the industry.
"In this business, it depends if you can find a niche," he says. "The big movie stars, they've been doing it for a long time. Bishop just started it. It all depends on his will and determination and luck, which is also a huge factor. And who do you know and who you don't know. It all depends on these factors."
Cecil Lowe, a close friend of Stevens' who wrestled under the name Saber, says he isn't surprised by Stevens' burgeoning success as an actor.
"No, he's one of them guys when he puts his mind to it, he gonna make it happen," says Lowe, who after retiring from wrestling makes his living as a professional video-game player.
Lowe points to the acting classes Stevens takes part in when he's not working on a project, as well as the videos Stevens has posted offering tips to newcomers on how to break into TV and film.
"He's not one of those guys who, once he starts making it, he puts everyone else to the side," Lowe says.
Lowe recalls an acting class the two took part in, during which Stevens had to act fierce and intimidating.
"Oh, my God, he's gonna tear my head off," Lowe recalls thinking. Yet, he adds, "as soon as the guy said 'cut,' he was back to his normal self again, chit-chatting and laughing and joking."
