Studios have been working hard to recapture the magic of The Lord of the Rings, but the not all the stars of the franchise are necessarily willing to come back. In a recent interview with Collider, John Rhys-Davies said he’d consider reprising his role as Gimli the Dwarf – if filming was a bit easier this time. While many fans and cast members yearn for the old practical effects, Rhys-Davies was specifically hoping that CGI would save him some time in the makeup chair.
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“Well, I’m known to not want to put that prosthetic on again,” Rhys-Davies said, “but out of deference to Andy [Serkis], whom I love and admire and again who has grown so much, if they invited me… Oh god, could I dare to put on that make-up again and lose my skin? Maybe with CGI. Before when they asked me to do The Hobbit, for instance, I said no. No, not at all. Times have moved on and technology has moved on, if I don’t have to spend eight hours a day for three years of my life in a make-up chair, I might indeed do it.”
Rhys-Davies was specifically talking about the upcoming live-action movie The Hunt for Gollum, which will be directed by Serkis, who has played Gollum for over two decades now. That movie is set during the time skip in The Fellowship of the Ring, and features Gandalf and Aragorn heavily in the plot. With that in mind, many stars have said that they’d be willing to reprise their roles, including Elijah Wood as Frodo and Orlando Bloom as Legolas. Rhys-Davies, however, has been vocal about his issues with the production over the years, and he still has concerns about a potential comback.
“The other thing is physically I am no longer capable of putting eighty pounds of extra armor and stuff on and climbing up mountains,” the actor added in his new interview. It’s worth noting that Rhys-Davies’ proposal for CGI to replace his prosthetic is not new – The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies featured dwarves rendered in CGI, though not everyone was a fan.
It sounds like Rhys-Davies hasn’t been asked to appear in The Hunt for Gollum yet, and there’s no telling whether the offer will be extended – or whether his terms will be met. The movie will cover a part of the story that wasn’t depicted in either Jackson’s films or J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels, shortly after Bilbo left the Shire and Gandalf began researching the One Ring. When he began to suspect what they were dealing with, he tasked Aragorn with tracking down Gollum, which he was able to do only because of his expert tracking skills.
That movie is slated for release in 2026, but details on the production are still scarce. In the meantime, fans can return to Middle-earth next month for The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. The animated prequel hits theaters on December 13th.
