Christ he's indeed perfect to be an angry dwarf.

He really said 'Certainty of death, small chance of success. What are we waiting for?'

Wow. John Rhys Davis went to New Zealand fully expecting to find a trainwreck and wound up starring in a masterpiece.

The irony of this man playing a dwarf when he is like 7 feet tall still gets me.

Peter Jackson: "We tried multiple times but we finally got him." John Rhys Davis: "THAT STILL ONLY COUNTS AS ONE!"

JRD shows up to NZ all worked up with an exit strategy that included acting like an angry old dwarf, in order to convince them that he was not who they wanted to be their angry old dwarf.

The rivalry and banter between Gimli and Legolas is easily one of the best things about the trilogy. Still remains, IMHO, one of the best trilogies ever made.

You have to thank the children of the actors for convincing their parents to take these roles. Viggo's eldest son also told his father that he should accept the role of Aragon when it was offered to Viggo.

I feel like John Rhys-Davies and Brian Blessed are secretly brothers separated at birth. They both have the same boisterous energy and grand gravitas that makes all of their characters so memorable.

He's such a legend. IMO his Gimli is the gold standard for how a fantasy dwarf should be portrayed. The trilogy was great, but he definitely elevated it. Can't imagine anyone else in that role.

That LOTR came out at the level of quality that it did is a miracle

Met John at Comic Con about 13 years ago, I was still a teenager, he gave some great advice: "Don't smoke the devils lettuce, you'll lose serious IQ points that you wont get back." Great guy!

After all, it was considered un-filmable. Sean Connery even passed on the role of Gandalf. John's skepticism was pretty reasonable. But I'm glad he stuck around and Peter Jackson proved the doubters wrong.

Lord of the Rings really was lightning in a bottle. The fact that the crew were both passionate and talented, the fact that the studio backed them all the way with huge budgets and resources, the quality of the actors, the fact that technology had just gotten to the point where they could convincingly pull off fully CGI creatures (but also not so cheap or easy to work with that they could do everything that way), the fact that the general audience were ready for a trilogy of super-long fantasy epics. Every single aspect at every single point was just the best it could have been and that's a miracle. It all just hit in a way that I don't think we'll see replicated for a long long time.

There's Sean Connery's sibilants, there's James Earl Jones resonance, there's Alan Rickman's diction, there's Jeremy Irons nasal tones and there's the joyous, clear sound of Rhys Davies

Prof. Arturo was my favorite from sliders. Also great on Indiana Jones.

Ah, Gimli's optimism at its best. Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?

I have a rudimentary knowledge of LOTR and Tolkien, so I was stunned to discover this man is 1.85m (6' 1), the tallest of the Fellowship actors! The effects and cinematography were so good that I never doubted he was a very short individual. Nowadays, when CGI and cinematography try to make someone appear bigger or smaller, it looks like a joke.

I always picture him warning Indy about "bad dates".

I think John Rhys Davis had a point about being skeptical. I interviewed Fran Walsh, one of the screenwriters, and she told me that they started filming with a 75-page treatment. Paraphrasing Walsh, she likened writing the first script to laying tracks before a speeding locomotive. I said, "You mean like Wile E Coyote?" And she said, "Yes, but with a little less grace." Met John Rhys Davis too... what a great cast. Fabulous group of people.

He had a great run as Gimli. Although It was over short distances.

A couple of his lines in "Shogun" are still ringing in my head. I was too young at the time to understand, but I realized later that it was the first time I was touched by great acting.

Gruff, grumpy Welsh man shows everyone exactly why he was the only person who could have pulled off such an amazing performance as Gimli.

Just goes to show that celebrities never have any clue about what they are talking about, no matter how full of themselves they are.

Bruce Campbell has apparently refused to ever watch Lord Of the Rings, because at the time he was filming 'Jack of All Trades' in New Zealand, and they were forced to work with scraps because Jackson sucked up all the filming resources. Costimes, weapons, horses, crew, Jackson took all the best stuff in the entire country, forming a grudge that Bruce holds to this day. (Or at least at the time his last book was published.)

When you consider the magnitude or pure Dreck on youtube - how can this channel only have 182k subscribers??? its gold every time. The world has gone nuts.

He’ll always be Prof. Arturo to me.

Gonad Squeeze is a great name for a punk band.

He was so great as Gimli. The only thing I didn't like about the Jackson LotR movies was how much they used Gimli for comic relief. Merry and Pippin were enough for comic relief, they didn't need to do it with Gimli as well; making him fall off his horse etc. The real Gimli in the book wasn't someone you ever laughed at, he was a fearsome tank of a warrior. When book Gimli and Legolas had an orc-killing contest in the battle at Helm's Deep, Gimli won.

The IRONY is overflowing. I mean perfect casting for the stubborn-headed Gimli.

It's kinda weird seeing all the Hobbit actors becoming old and grey, and Gimli remaining more or less as is.

Gimli & Legolas' bromance was the best relationship in LOTRO.

And it ended up being one of the greatest trilogies in history. This is due to the immense amount of work that went into the script and attention to detail for YEARS before they shot a single scene. In contrast, "The Hobbit" was a disappointment because this level of care was not there (and they deviated *WAY* too much from the source material).

To be fair, nobody thought the LOTR movies were going to be as great and iconic as they turned out to be. Fantasy was still the red-headed stepchild genre in Hollywood at the time, and Peter Jackson was famous for wild splatter flicks. Heck, even he couldn't capture that magic again when he made the Hobbit movies.

I love that they've got a statue of Indiana Jones across from Rys-Davies. And he was one of the best actors in the trilogy, along with Ian McKellen.

Thank goodness you did go for it sir. It wouldn't be the same without you. Love the characters you've brought to life over your career.

He was allergic to the prosthetics and still gave 100% and we got the best Gimli 👍

We just watched the Trilogy again over this past week & it still holds up. ⭐️

Awesome interview

I had the pleasure of meeting him last summer, wow, such an amazing man, that he took the time to talk to us. it was a fun chat, for sure, super down to earth gentleman who still has a hint of mischief in his eyes.

HA! The jokes on him. He got TWO roles.

Well John got that slightly wrong😄

Great interview! =)

Fuck, yeah! Finally in full on Spotify! This will make my hiking trips the best experience ever!

Is there more of this interview?

TF -- John Noble played Denethor. How the hell did I not put that together.

Some of my favorite Davies’ work was his narration for “Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness”. That game is polished off thanks to his voicework.

Gimli/Sallah meets Lex Luthor….that’s something I did not expect

He also portrayed Viscount Mabrey in Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement - great movie btw ❤

It saddens me to imagine some alternate universe where John's exit strategy worked and he wasn't Gimli.

I love how comfortable he is admitting how wrong he was, clearly knowing that it was the case in hindsight

This mans portrayal of gimli is the single reason why I always played dwarves in a fantasy setting and got in to fantasy settings in the first place

So good to see him ❤

Bring back Sliders

How ever u feel about it I loved you as gimili, when I found out that you played gimili I was even more impressed. Thank you.

I met him years ago go and talked to him for a good ten minutes what a lovely kind man

"You had an exit strategy." "I had an exithhstraggthey."

The legend himself actually on the show in person!

This man maintains such a presence in his eyes alone,not to mention his facial expressions and that VOICE. Watching him for these four minutes is basically worth a movie. Now I might just go watch one of his.

i read TLOTR's in the mid 90s way before the movies came out. when i read, i cast hollywood actors- just helps the reading process. i cast davies as gimli on the back of watching so much sliders. mind was blown when he was actually cast.

Excellent interview best trilogy out there. I remember seeing it in the theater and was amazing. Glad he took the role because I don’t see anybody else playing that role. I would’ve asked him what he thought about Wangs of power and how they butchered some aspects of the storyline.

He did a great job. He wasn't responsible for the deviations from the book. I hope people who watch the movies are interested enough to read the book. I have been watching him with great interest ever since he was in the 'Shogun' mini-series.

Time sure flies by

Agreed: I’ve only seen 2 clips but can tell this will be the best interview he’s done 🤩

John is a legend, adored him from as far back as Sliders.

Well. If you’re gonna be wrong, you might as well be wrong in a masterpiece! 😂

oh shit... I was wondering why he looked familiar, he was in the OG mini-series Shogun. it still holds up!

Is therr a pt2 to this interview?

WOW Love John Rhys Davis!! Great interview! Even if you do have a delicate audience.😂😂

Peter Jackson is a mad genius. There is no other way to put it.

Turns out I first knew this guy way back in my childhood. He is Noree Moneo, Mentat of House Atredies in Dune 2000. Love the boom of his voice.

Brilliant stuff ❤ I love John as many if you do and would have loved if he had more screen time in Jones5

That guy has a mask on in 2024 hahaa

INDY my friend!!!!!!

I remember reading in Fangoria that the guy who made Braindead and Meet the Feebles was making Lord of the Rings. I was certain it would fail too.

Nobody could have played it better and the world was lucky to have him

He's such a brilliant storyteller

I've been a fan of this man since I was a little boy. I don't think of him as Gimli or Sala. He'll always first be Rodriguez. Watching Shogun with my old man, and him telling me stories about when he was stationed in Japan.

I remember watching I' Claudius back in the day and thinking, "wow, this actor is great!" I've really enjoyed his work over the years.

I absolutely love actors who diss their own most famous work before they're ever made. Love John. I recently watched the 2024 Shogun and enjoyed it, but didn't know he was in the 1980 version. Gotta try and find it to watch it now.

My god, I fucking love this man. I've never seen LOTR, but I've seen a lot of his other work and he's great

There is no person on the planet that could have done a better job as GIMLI in my mind. Perfect casting.

Just met him at Indy comic con 3 days ago. He was so cool!😎

I was getting my haircut at a hole in wall barbershop in Tulsa, OK back in 2016… in walked a lady asking if a man could get a beard trim… then a very unsuspecting man came in but I kept glancing over because he looked familiar… finally, I figured it out - it was John Rhys Davies! We had a lovely chat.

You'd think you'd look at Peter Jackson's filmography and realize you weren't dealing with a lightweight.

JRD had good reasons for doubting that LotR would be successful: 1- It had already been tried, and turned out pretty horrendous. 2- It required successfully converting *three* very long books into films which could only cover perhaps half of what was in each book. 3- The books had a large fanbase, which was likely to be offended even *before* the films were made, and triply so once the first film was actually released. 4- If #3 held true, the likelihood of making the rest was extremely low, and being associated with a massive failure is difficult for an actor in a starring role to overcome. His comment about the amount of prosthetic/makeup/costuming is specifically in light of his low expectations regarding the success of the film: to put in that much work only to have the film tank his career ... we can easily judge with hindsight, but JRD didn't have that luxury - he was taking a risk (and given the way many fans of the book reacted, he wasn't really wrong so much as underestimating how much the non-booked audience would enjoy the film.) As a fan of the books (I'd read the trilogy 13 times, the Hobbit 7, and the Silmarillion twice by the time the "Fellowship" film was released), I can enjoy it for what it is - a story loosely based on Tolkien's works. It isn't - and couldn't possibly *be* - a faithful depiction, in part because Jackson doesn't understand the faith which underpinned so much of the books, in part because the books contain so much material, and in part because a significant part of the books is in the unstated or undepictable ... that which happens inside the reader's head without ever being put into print on a page!

were is the rest of the interview ?

Good god, I thought that interviewer was the bloke from Shooting Stars until he spoke. They’re images of one another!

I want him as a grumpy steampunk dwarf in a non-woke Snow White

I am one of those Tolkien nerds that pop up whenever something LOTR gets posted, lol. If you read the books you know how much of LOTR was cut down and in some parts dramatically changed as an example: arwen doesnt get frodo to rivendell it was glorfindel, there are many other examples. Jackson committed himself and the production to preserving Tolkiens story, and he get the right cast in the right roles who also committed to it. You see this with Gimli specifically, the constant competition with legolas is more then their friendship evolving, its meant to represent the rivalry they had. In the books, there is real animosity between Gimli and Legolas until Gimli meets Galadriel and his opinion of elves change. Rhys Davies did a great job in the role. I know this was long but you know how tolkien fans are, lol. Thanks for putting up this video.

I have family member through marriage that was in lord of the rings. When I was told that they were going to make a trilogy quite some time before they started shooting, I thought there's no way that Peter Jackson is going to do it justice and it was going to be a low budget disaster. Boy was I wrong!🤦 I just never thought in my wildest dreams that I would've turned out as good as a did.

I vaguely remembered seeing John Rhys-Davies in Indiana Jones and some other roles, didn't know he was cast as Gimli. The LOTR trilogy did so well with doubles and camera tricks, that I genuinely thought I remembered him wrong from Indiana Jones, cause he seemed like a pretty big guy..... saw Indiana Jones again shortly after and went "Ohhhh, i'm stupid."

Who's the violet with a mask?

Thank god he did the roll.He is the reason alot of people like fantasy dwarves.I myself always played dwarves in d and d.when he did the part i was so very happy to see a dwarven fighter in action.

That man was a large reason why I enjoyed 'Freelancer' so much, by the way. It was so cool having a LOTR dwarf as a systems expert in a video game. ;)

The quality of the Peter Jackson trilogy is nothing short of a miracle. Everything came together. The stars aligned. It's probably never going to be replicated.

He was in Wax Works and his role was short but I always remember him from that movie, if you haven't watched it you should give it a go.

Mr. Monarch of the Sea is, and always will be a legend. I could listen to him talk for hours.

He was also a very intimidating Macro in "I, Claudius"...which is a great series in itself...

I get to meet John Rhys-Davies this weekend. Looking forward to meeting 2 legends at SC Comic Con (also meeting William Shatner).