John Rhys-Davies (born 5 May 1944) is a Welsh actor best known for portraying Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Sallah in the Indiana Jones franchise.

[2] Due to his father's work as a colonial police officer, Rhys-Davies was raised in Tanganyika (today part of Tanzania) before his family moved to the Welsh town of Ammanford.

After a stint teaching at a secondary school in Watton, Norfolk, Rhys-Davies won a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Rhys-Davies appeared sporadically on UK television in the early 1970s, including his role as the gangster "Laughing Spam Fritter" opposite Adam Faith in Budgie.

[3] He also starred in another Clavell adaption, Noble House, set in Hong Kong, where Rhys-Davies plays Ian Dunross' corporate enemy, Quillan Gornt.

Rhys-Davies has played the character Porthos in two separate projects; a two-part episode of The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne, and the Hallmark Channel film La Femme Musketeer.

[11] The work consisted of full body motion capture, including facial expressions and his voice; it was recorded primarily at the Imaginarium studios in the UK.

Rhys-Davies also had a voice role on Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance as the character Jherek, and narrated a documentary called The Glory of Macedonia.

Next Generation magazine gave its Dune 2000 review 'an automatic one-star deduction for featuring John "Multimedia Whore" Rhys-Davies in the FMV.

[21] In the narration, he explores swords, historical European swordsmanship and fight choreography on film, a topic very familiar to Rhys-Davies from his experiences in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, where his character wielded an axe in many scenes.

In 2004, Rhys-Davies was the unknowing subject of an internet prank that spread false rumours in several mainstream media sources that he was scheduled to play the role of General Grievous in Star Wars Episode III.

He was a radical leftist as a university student in the 1960s, but changed his views after heckling Margaret Thatcher, who he said "shot down the first two hecklers in such brilliant fashion that [he] decided [he] ought for once to shut up and listen".

[34] In 2004, Rhys-Davies said in an interview with World magazine: "There is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about, that we daren't bring up because we are so cagey about not offending people racially.

"[35] In an interview with the conservative journal National Review, he said that he is opposed to Islamic extremism because he believes that it violates the Western values of equality, democracy, tolerance, and the abolition of slavery.