Why JOHN RHYS-DAVIES Had Such a Harsh Reaction to Being Cast as GIMLI in LORD OF THE RINGS

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

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?'

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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