People behind the characters!!!

Elijah Wood   Billy Boyd   Dominic Monaghan   Sean Astin   Ian Holm   Liv Tyler   Christopher Lee   Sean Bean   John Rhys Davis   Cate Blanchett   Viggo Mortensen   Hugo Weaving

John Rhys Davies!!	'Do you know why I got involed with this?' asks John Rhys-Davis. ' I really wanted to play a character called Denethor. He is Borimir's father and doesn't appear until The Two Towers. I thought: I can go to New Zealand for a few weeks, be in one or two wonderful scenes and go home knowing that I was in one of the biggest picures of all time. That was the idea!' However, like several cast members of The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, John Rhys Davis did not get his first-choice role: 'I was totally shaken when they came back and asked me to play Gimli!' Undertaking the role of Gimli was to prove a challenge, not least because many hours spent in the make-up department of wearing a quantity of prosthetic make-up (to which John Rhys Davis' skin developed an allergic reaction), the actor quickly became aware of the character's importance within the Fellowship of the Ring and the dramatic structure of the saga. 'There is,' explains Rhys Davis, 'an allergic ferocity in the Dwarf that the film needs. It's often these minorchracters who really have an impart a sense of energy and dynamismto a film so that the heores an actually take their time to respond and be thoughtful and reflective.' It is something that the whels-born actor well understands, having played several such film parts, including his memorbale appearances as Harrison Ford's roguish sidekick, Sallah, in raiders of the lost ark and indiana jones and the last crusade. Rys Davis studied London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and in addition to his distinguished theatre work - Othello, Macbeth and Falstaff - has taken leading roles in many movies, amoung them Victor/Victoria, The Living Daylights, King Soloman's Mines and the 1992 re-make of Conan Doyle's The Lost World in which he starred as Professor Challenger. His prolific television-credits include playing Vasco Rodrigues in James Clavell's Shogun,Agent Malone in the British series, the untouchable and Joe Gargery in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. Rhys Davis has also starred in the TV mini-series, War and Rememberance and has made guest appearences in Murder, she wrote and Star Trek:Voyager, in whch he has twice portayed Leonardo Da Vinchi! Rflecting on Tolkien's story and the decisison to te filmit in New Zealand with Peter Jackson as director, Rhs Davis says 'In the twilight of gloom, darkness and evil that is encompassing and about to overthrow the world, there are still men of virtue, there is still humour, honour, courage and compassion. And we couldn't have picked a better director or a better country to encapsulate that drama.' And as for the Dwarf: 'Well', laughs Rhys Davies., 'Gimli is a short fellow, so it was really very interesting: I've never played a part before where I had to look up all the time I was acting!'