John Rhys-Davies
John Rhys-Davies
John Rhys-Daviesis a Welsh actor and voice actor known for his portrayal of Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the charismatic Arab excavator Sallah in the Indiana Jones films. He also played Agent Michael Malone in the 1993 remake of the 1950s television series The Untouchables, Pilot Vasco Rodrigues in the mini-series Shōgun, Professor Maximillian Arturo in Sliders, King Richard I in Robin of Sherwood, General Leonid Pushkin in the James Bond film The Living Daylights, and...
NationalityWelsh
ProfessionActor
Date of Birth5 May 1944
Spying is a like a game of chess: Sometimes you have to withdraw, sometimes you have to sacrifice one of your pieces to win - preferably a knight rather than a king or queen.
The script of 'Shogun' was so tight that you could not take a word out of a sentence, you could not take a sentence out of a scene, and you certainly couldn't take out a scene without putting ripples right through the back or the front of the overall story.
Actually, I'm addicted to science fiction. Let me make my diction clear - I love sci-fi.
Villains 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.
The word 'career' and 'actor' really don't fit in the same paragraph, let alone sentence. There is no career structure for actors.
I like heroes, and would like to be a hero myself. I suppose we all want that.
In the film world, we can all be heroes. In the real world, where heroism can cost you your life or the life of the ones you love, people aren't so willing to make those sacrifices. When they do, they are set apart from the rest of us.
Sometimes you learn more from films that aren't terribly successful and, indeed, sometimes you learn more from real disasters than you do from the ones that succeed.
Hollywood is a far safer place to work than working abroad, because of the skill level, and because of the safety considerations that experience and unionization have created.
To be an actor for 30-odd years trying to become recognized, and to end up playing a full prosthetic and a character 3 foot 9′, or something like that, is... well, it just shows that you can get actors to do anything.
Id love to spend more time on the Isle of Man. I love the anonymity of putting on a boiler suit and going down to buy parts for the compressor. And Norman Wisdoms a neighbour; I salute him occasionally.
I think 'The Lost World' could've been a successful movie except for the fact that it pre-dated the good special effects and computer graphics.
Many do not understand how precarious Western civilization is and what a joy it is. From it, we get real democracy. From it, we get the sort of intellectual tolerance that allows me to propound something that may be completely alien to you.
I'm not actually sure that actors or artists should be allowed to have a family, because the focus you need, the egotism, the myopia, is just taking away from the relationship.