About taking part of the LOTR trilogy : "My manager and agent both said 'You have to do it - it is going to be a big movie', and I said it could be a big movie - it could also be a big disaster. And I don't want to waste a couple of years of my life doing something that's a poor film and then two direct-to-videos. I spent 30 years trying to get myself recognised. Why would I want to do three films covered in a full prosthetic make-up ? [...] I happened to be in England and my eldest son said 'Dad - with all due respect - you would be nuts to turn this down'"

Interview from Sci-Fi Weekly : Q "What did you have to endure in order to transform into Gimli ?"
John Rhys-Davies : "It's all a synthetic face. It is actually flexible, but it is quite hard to work [to wear], if you know what I mean. I think we started out taking about six or seven hours putting it on, and got it down to about three and a half hours by the end. But then it would take an hour to take it off. A touchup—which you'd normally do just before a take and usually takes 25 seconds to a couple of minutes, tops—would be 20 minutes, 25 minutes sometimes, and you'd keep the entire unit waiting as my brilliant makeup artists did their work."