Genre films are something of a trap for actors and actresses. One memorable role in a movie franchise beloved by one flavor of geek or another, and they're pretty much set for life -- as long as sequels keep getting made, they'll keep getting steady work, and the sun will set on their acting careers about five weeks after they die. On the other hand, as long as they're best known for genre parts, those are the parts they're likely to keep getting ad infinitum; there's a reason it's called the genre ghetto. Unfortunately, actors who take up residence there are awfully reluctant to leave because the paychecks are good, but they soon find out it's not easy even when they decide to move to a ritzier neighborhood. More than a few actors of some talent and range have found themselves, after cashing in off of a big genre-character role, being judged for the rest of their careers not on how well they can act, but how well they can still fit into their old costumes. Such an actor is the big, hearty Welshman John Rhys Davies: a man of impressive range and flawless credentials playing the classics on stage, his portrayal of a handful of unforgettable characters in sci-fi and fantasy films has somewhat derailed his career while at the same time ensuring that he'll always have work. He's gone from being the poor man's Brian Blessed to being one of the innumerable people who pays for his house by spending half the year in New Zealand filming syndicated sci-fi television shows.
It wasn't always this way for John Rhys-Davies. He started out in theater (as did his childhood friend and sometime co-star, Patrick Stewart -- an actor who is in a similarly precarious predicament, career-wise) and has an extensive background in Shakesperian productions of great acclaim. But aside from the movie roles listed below that launched him to wide, if not deep, fame, he likewise co-starred in the 1990s cult sci-fi show Sliders, forever assuring him a seat of honor at a science fiction convention near you, and likewise cutting him off from getting the kind of parts that would demonstrate the kind of range he had early in his career. Even when Rhys-Davies plays, as he has, Gamel Nasser, a Spanish conquistador, or the King of Troy, he's forever going to be thought of by his most devoted fans as Prof. Max Arturo or one of his other genre roles. Then again, it's hard to have a lot of sympathy for the guy, given that in 2004, he pissed all over his reputation by publicly endorsing the crackpot demographic beliefs of Mark Steyn and other right-wing demagogues, worrying himself over the allegedly insufficient breeding habits of white people and sweating over the nonsensical and pointless belief that Muslims will be 50% of the population by 2015. It's ironic that a man who has many times played the part of Arabs or Muslims -- including in one of his most famous roles -- shows such knee-jerk horror of the real thing; but for all that, he's still a gifted actor who deserves a few more chances to stretch his feet outside the genre ghetto.
Where to see John Rhys-Davies at his best:
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)
For over twenty years, John Rhys-Davies' most recognizable role to geeks and squares alike was Sallah, the Egyptian archaeologist who served as advisor, assistant, friend, and grand vizier to Indiana Jones. He had some of the most memorable scenes in the first two movies, including one where he warns our hero that there are worse consequences to bad dates than just blowing fifty bucks on dinner and a movie. For reasons it would be ungentlemanly to discuss, the character will likely not be appearing in the new Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but it's still one of his warmest, most charismatic roles he's ever played.
THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (1987)
Timothy Dalton's first role as 007 was a tricky one: in the era of perestroika, it didn't seem quite right to portray the Russians as the unrepentant monsters they had been in previous James Bond films. But it was so darn hard to let go of such juicy villains! Thus it fell to our Welsh wonder to portray Leonid Pushkin, the mysterious Russian general who may or my not have been as bad as he seems. It's that rare thing, a character in a James Bond film with a charcterization with more than one dimension, and Rhys-Davies obviously has a lot of fun with it, and even gets a meaty Bond-movie kill line.
LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001)
Oh, yeah,
that thing. Yes, John Rhys-Davies got the role of his career when, after auditioning for much more minor roles in Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" epic, he snagged the part of Gimli the Dwarf. It was one of the more underwritten parts in the film, in fact, consisting mostly of short jokes after an intial burst of hotheadedness, but Rhys-Davies makes the most of it, and his charisma with Orlando Bloom is undeniable. (It's a bit amusing that Rhys-Davies, who is a solid six-footer who's taller than most of the members of the cast, was selected to play a four-foot-tall character, but at least he had a sense of humor about it.)