As hard as it may be to believe, it has been almost two decades since The Lord of the Rings hit theaters. Still, when we had the chance to chat exclusively with Gimli and Treebeard actor John Rhys-Davies to help promote his upcoming sci-fi film G-Loc, we had to ask which character he liked better.
It turns out that while the actor says he loves Gimli, apparently Treebeard is one of the hardest roles he's ever had to play, and he gives a very insightful reason as to why. After that, he reveals a 10,000-year-old piece of bark-oak one of his friends gave him that looks like Treebeard.
If you're interested in checking out the audio portion of our exclusive interview, click play on the podcast player below! John comes in around 08:20. Also, check out the video at the bottom to see John Rhys-Davies sing me Happy Birthday alongside Stephen Moyer (True Blood) and Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers).
Literary Joe: What do you think your most recognizable role is because you have so many?
John Rhys-Davies: Well, it depends on what the fashion is of the day, you know? This week, on the Isle of Man, Sliders is being screened, so I'm Arturo again. So it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
Literary Joe: Do you like Treebeard or Gimli more? Which do you feel more at home when you're playing?
John Rhys-Davies: I love Gimli. Treebeard is one of the very few parts that I've had, that I wake up in a sweat at night, thinking, "I don't know how to play this."
It's the hardest part I've ever done, and I don't know how to play it, and it's not right. It's not the way it is in the book, but I could find no way of doing it. How the hell do you voice something that has no lungs?
Oh! I want to show you something a friend of mine gave me this week! I've got a friend of mine who loves playing and working with wood. And a farmer gave me a piece of this; we call it bark-oak. It's probably 10,000 years old, the oak, and it gets very black.
Now, look very carefully at the profile of this. He put a couple of eyes in it, but the rest is all as it came out of the Earth.
With Earth virtually destroyed, Bran Marshall flees to the Rhea, a planet hostile to Earthlings. Escaping onto a Rhean supply ship, he finds the crew slaughtered, with the only survivor a female warrior named Ohsha. As the two try to kill one another, the ship is damaged by meteorites. Bran (Moyer) and Ohsha must join forces to salvage the craft before it impacts the planet below — and the humans that live there.
This gripping sci-fi epic stars Stephen Moyer, Casper Van Dien, and John Rhys-Davies.
G-Loc hits DVD, Digital, and On-Demand Tuesday, August 11th.