John Rhys-Davies

format_quote Villians are a lot of fun. My villains have a lot of tongue-in-cheek. They are sometimes conscious of and a little bit gleeful of their villainy. But I actually despise certain forms of villainy. In England, we have a class of villain that's very proud of itself. I've found them totally uncharming. I'm not the slightest bit impressed by how he has robbed a bank, how he has killed someone. I only once played a real villain. He was based on the life of a real man. I really didn't like him. I played him for what he was worth, which was a bullying, cowardly, malevolent, treacherous son-of-a-bitch. Although he had a measure of charm -- the little shit.

stars  John Rhys-Davies spent up to 5 hours a day putting on makeup for the role of Gimli in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It was discovered early on that he was allergic to the prosthetics, so he could only put them on and work about every third day. The first week, it burned off the skin under his eyes.

stars  Parents: Rhys Davies (a mechanical engineer) and Mary Margaretta Phyllis Jones (a nurse).

stars  September 2004 - Attended the Armaggeddon Pulp Culture Expo Convention in Wellington, New Zealand as a Lord of the Rings guest

stars  Before getting the role of Gimli, he auditioned for the role of Denethor. Orlando Bloom, who played Legolas, auditioned for the role of Denethor's other son, Faramir. In Helen of Troy, Rhys-Davies played Priam, and in Troy (2004), Bloom played Paris, Priam's younger son.

stars  While working on the Lord of the Rings films, he lost seventy pounds from all the running around the part involved. When he went back to New Zealand for re-shoots, the makeup artists had to alter his Gimli makeup to better fit his slimmed-down facial features.