John Rhys-Davies

John Rhys-Davies stands six feet one inch tall. It's a detail that seems irrelevant until you remember he spent three years filming in New Zealand playing a dwarf just over three feet tall. His voice booms before he walks into the room (a baritone trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art that commands instant respect).

In 1980, he appeared in the miniseries Shogun. That role earned him an Emmy nomination and put him on the radar of major Hollywood studios. Before his big breakthrough, he spent years honing his craft in BBC productions, where he learned that acting means holding your ground under any circumstances.

And just like that, his luck changed forever.

Steven Spielberg was looking for an actor to play Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). The director wanted someone with the physical presence of a dockworker and the culture of a scholar. Rhys-Davies fit the bill because he understood that adventure cinema demanded real sweat and an energy that would jump off the screen.

The Physical Toll of Middle-earth

Filming of The Lord of the Rings began in 1999. Rhys-Davies accepted the role of Gimli without knowing that the prosthetic glue would systematically burn the skin on his eyelids. The experience was an ordeal of endurance that nearly made him quit the project in its first few weeks.

He spent three hours a day in the makeup chair before the rest of the crew arrived on set. **His eyes swelled so much that at times he couldn't see the ground** while filming action scenes in the New Zealand mountains. But he never asked for a stunt double for shots where his face was even slightly visible.

He's an accidental method actor.

Because the pain was real, his performance as the dwarf gained a harshness that digital retouching can't replicate. He finished the trilogy in 2003 with temporary loss of peripheral vision caused by the makeup chemicals. So he decided he would never again undergo a physical transformation of that magnitude.

Voice Work as Refuge and Livelihood

From 2010 onward, his career shifted strongly toward voice acting and independent productions. His voice is his most profitable tool. He has lent his vocal cords to big-budget video games such as Star Citizen and Squadron 42, with a military discipline that amazes sound engineers.

In 2023, he put Sallah's turban back on for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. It was a brief appearance, shot in just a few days in London. The actor took the job out of pure loyalty to a character that gave him the financial stability he needed to collect classic cars, his true passion away from the spotlight.

The size of the role doesn't matter to him as long as the check arrives on time.

John Rhys-Davies has **more than 270 official credits** on their IMDb profile. In 2024, they took part in the shoot of The King of Prophets and continues to accept scripts at a pace of five projects a year. Their contract always stipulates a set number of rest hours to protect their skin from any industrial adhesive.