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John Rhys-Davies Reflects on Life, AI, and Lord of the Rings at Fan Expo Dallas
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Jun 19, 2025
From tales of plane crashes to heartfelt moments with loved ones, Lord of the Rings and Indiana Jones legend John Rhys-Davies captivated the audience at Fan Expo Dallas 2025. In this unforgettable Q&A, he shares wisdom on aging, his experience playing Gimli, working with Orlando Bloom, and the looming impact of AI on Hollywood. He even recounts a deeply emotional story about helping a lifelong friend through her final days. Whether you're a fan of Sliders, Shōgun, or just want to hear from one of the most thoughtful voices in entertainment, this is a must-watch panel. 📍 Filmed live at Fan Expo Dallas 2025 🎥 Watch more celebrity panels: Tales From The Collection YouTube Channel
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0:00
let's hear for Charlie Stew
0:14
[Applause]
0:24
and it's lovely to be back in the hill this afternoon
0:29
so to be back in Paris of course and I I've never seen quite so many homeless
0:35
people looking for thank you very much for coming and John
0:40
was hyping up the town and then you just talk about Just All right what are we
0:45
going to talk about hey let's talk about the end of the human race [Applause]
0:53
did you notice that this week it was reported that one and I think it may have been
1:00
chatton GP refused to turn off
1:06
and another AI actually was caught writing a little uh sub or sub sub
1:17
instruction so that it itself could restart itself myself
1:22
this may be the moment in history where anyone who's surviving says it was at
1:29
that point that it really started
1:34
a momentous week it's so funny that you even brought this up John because the last time I think we
1:41
were in Philadelphia together and the last thing we talked about was AI and I
1:46
thought that conversation we were just scratching the surface with that conversation um last time I saw you also
1:53
you you were uh you came up on the panel with Andy Circus and I uh we were talking a little bit um and Andy is a
2:00
big advocate on using AI as a tool using it properly i wanted to get your take on
2:06
where you see the entertainment industry going and how AI can be used either to
2:11
benefit or to destroy Hollywood um
2:17
I I've just today given my little votes on a little AI film competition that's
2:25
uh that's going uh one or two of them I thought were
2:32
okay but three or four of them I thought were
2:38
really good and one of them was brilliant i told the whole story and
2:44
it's all in the camera it's all it's all in in in in the computer maybe um
2:52
I think that it's it's progressing so quickly
2:58
i did a little horror picture about five weeks ago four weeks ago uh and there
3:04
were one or two of these special effects that they were using some of the uh the images of the actors and I really
3:11
thought that they were the actors the face the faces were so good and so
3:17
depicting um I'm quite convinced that actually
3:23
the revolution that is coming upon us is going to be the biggest and most
3:28
significant change in modern history and people
3:34
compare it to the uh the advent of the industrial revolution saying yes it put the weavers out of work but they went
3:42
into the cities and they become engine you know all I I think that the scale
3:48
and the rate of this change is going to be one of the most
3:53
disruptive things that has ever happened to industrialized societies
3:59
and now I've got to do this very delicately because I do not want to appear to be in
4:06
any way advocating or denying
4:11
your government's policies no no wait a minute look I I mean this
4:17
quite seriously perhaps when we look at the radical
4:24
changes that have been made by your new president
4:29
perhaps there is a rationale behind it and that rationale is this that Elon
4:37
Musk who has for many years been saying that the impact of AI is going to be
4:43
colossal he reckons 35% of of jobs will
4:48
be impacted if you think about the economic and
4:53
social costs of that perhaps it would actually destroy your
5:00
your your social system and my guess is that this impulse
5:08
towards a sovereign wealth fund and restricting the number of Americans
5:16
and those attacks on uh on on on the IRS
5:25
uh are a a part of a plan to get rid of income
5:33
tax create a sovereign wealth fund that will give every American
5:40
uh money a regular paycheck
5:45
and because there is no income tax liberate the entrepreneurial spirit in
5:53
other words if you're living on a small paycheck
5:58
and you're saying "But there's no point in me earning because I get taxed on it." That disappears
6:06
the other benefit it would have is this we all endorse capitalism because we all
6:15
benefit from it but the way things are going at the moment if you imagine capitalism as a
6:21
triangle like that we all benefit under that but right at the moment the wealth
6:29
is being concentrated more and more in a relatively small number of people and
6:36
that is a very unstable thing it produces great envy and great
6:43
jealousy and great unrest at the bottom it produces great insecurity at the top
6:52
and if there is this if if what I'm seeing is right
6:59
then we may be able to control some of the social impact of
7:08
massive job deployment and loss and and liberate the entrepreneurial
7:17
spirit in everyone in America when you add to that that the sovereign
7:24
wealth fund would need plenty of resources and not adding too many extra
7:32
people to it that makes sense of for instance looking at Canada
7:39
looking at Greenland let me go one step further
7:44
perhaps it might also be looking at the largest territory in the world Russia
7:52
which has developed resources and a relatively small population
8:00
i realize that this sounds quite fantastical
8:05
but if it isn't the policy
8:13
shouldn't it be the policy i'm sorry enough stirring [ __ ]
8:20
i feel like you just pitched us a new episode of Siders um so you know we were talking about uh
8:28
with Andy Sergius you and I were up on stage you know that Andy's directing the new film um I shared a little bit about
8:35
myself with a lot of these folks before you got on stage i I
8:41
was telling them about times where interviews just don't go the way that I think they're going to go uh a role for
8:47
you that um you've said this before that still kind of haunt you and you didn't
8:52
know the right way to approach it was treat you um I wanted to get your insight on that about why you think that
9:00
role was the one that still kind of haunts you a little bit and if if and it were to give you the opportunity to
9:06
reprise that role what would be your approach now oh god no jeez
9:14
white tree beard i mean I'm sure Kimy would be in the in the in the in the film as well but I'm
9:20
just curious if if that's something that you want to take another step at well I'm locked into it aren't I i mean
9:28
what I did is is is what's out there but I don't know how to do that a young
9:33
voice actor came up to me today and he said "Can you give me a you know an exercise or a suggestion about and and
9:42
quite maliciously I said to him yes I think you ought to try and work on finding a voice for Tree Beard."
9:49
[Applause] Um if you see my apologies
9:56
but um Tree Beard is a is a difficult one i
10:05
You you the great thing a book can do that a film can't do it can convey a sense of
10:11
time just by going and our iron reads it and we know it's
10:18
very long very slow but if we do that in Phil
10:31
not so
10:38
hasty we've lost the audience [Applause]
10:45
so how do you convey that sense of time uh the answer is I didn't know then and
10:51
I Try not to think about it since [Applause]
10:58
I don't have to think about it again it will bring back those nightmares you know I've never had this i do not have
11:05
nightmares i I can sleep easily at night
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through bombs dropping and aircraft buzzing i've done all that um and um I
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never noticed a thing but there must have been at least 10 maybe 15 times
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after doing uh treatier that I woke up night you know in that blank fear of I
11:33
don't know how to do it i don't know how to do it i I did tell
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you that time I I went on Operas's show in New York uh a radio show and he had
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three or four friends uh who were real talking scholars and uh I said to him
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look uh I could use some help here uh if anyone's got some suggestions of how to
11:59
do this walking talking uh
12:06
slow moving almost the oldest thing on the planet
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it if I could get some clues uh I'd be I'd be really happy to listen to them we
12:19
only get one answer back i told you that one but I'll tell the audience anyway uh
12:24
the um the answer was this there is only one actor in the world
12:31
that can do this at which point I have to say I'm free in the little bench you
12:36
know James Jones [Applause]
12:48
agree with me um you know try to get your memory back
12:56
back when you did Lord of the Rings i know that when that was on the world that haunted you but can you talk about
13:01
a time uh that you'd want to go back to uh to do like to go back in time and
13:07
relive the performance you did not to change the performance but just to live on set being there and embrace taking it
13:14
all in maybe you didn't do that but you were there at the time
13:19
uh one would certainly be Uh it was my really first big
13:27
opportunity and I was still in my stupid drama school
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mentality of not wanting to have any stills done now how stupid can an actor
13:40
be for goodness sake how can you come to fan conventions unless you got some photographs
13:46
um but more than that
13:52
I I I think I mean I I had
13:58
I did the right thing i should have perhaps done more of it i I don't look when you look
14:05
at a script h you know some actors just uh count the pages you know how many
14:12
pages are made you know um a good actor reads it um thoroughly
14:20
and and really absorbs it and sees what the problems are and how he can make
14:27
himself central to solving those problems if you do that you do the
14:34
script service you do the producer director's service you can do your
14:40
fellow actor's service and of course if you are central to solving some of those
14:46
problems you do yourself service as well but the
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the the the way you do this is is to study the the script very carefully by
14:59
the way right at the moment I'm making a little picture we're with a young lad who happens to be the youngest son of an
15:06
old friend of mine called Pier Dros and young uh young Paris is is a model
15:14
he's tall he's handsome and he is such a keen actor
15:20
that he is at the moment he reads the entire script through again twice a day
15:28
every day that's how keen he is to understand the script of the story
15:35
and that's the sort of focus that young actors must have so you can see where
15:40
you are in the story and the part you play now in Shogun the problem was
15:47
evident they were going to use an athopotic Japanese now when we when we see a foreign film
15:56
we can in a language that we really don't understand at all
16:02
um our eyes glaze over very quickly when we uh
16:09
the the Japanese and and the English played by my dear
16:14
and much loved and departed friend Richard Bridget Camber um
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uh has this problem that he has to he is the hero and yet he has to play capacity
16:28
reacting to things when you opacity them you can't control the pace of the scene
16:35
you can't control the pace of of a group of scenes it's very hard to control the
16:42
pace of the whole thing impossible in that particular case so what was my
16:48
function to do that my function was to come in with every scene that I was
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with him uh with twice the energy
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that really it needed to be to bring that extra pace so that he instead of
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having to control uh the pace of the scene could just undercut could just
17:16
relax undercut under and and and and just let the energy of
17:23
the scene be carried by me and that would then go on into the next scenes
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that came that's that's how
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this thinking actor uh did that and I only I only pass it on
17:41
to you because it's one way in which an actor should look at a script and see
17:47
how to serve it the great maximal actors and writers
17:54
and musicians and performers of all sorts should be engraved upon
18:01
black on the wall opposite their bed so that every day we wake up and we see
18:08
those great lines of Dr johnson the praise laws
18:15
the promise patrons give and they who live to please must please
18:23
to live we have to serve the audience we have to
18:29
serve those who put the shows on to us and when I talk to young actors I say to
18:35
them if you find the audience angry with you or upset by you do not blame them
18:44
it's your fault you may have come up with the most revolutionary version of
18:50
playing Hamlet of all time but if they're walking out
18:58
then it's not their fault it's your fault and and and and I never want to
19:05
hear as I once heard quite a good actor you know you could hear in the wing sake
19:11
stupid audience and he was using words and words of that stupid audience don't understand anything do they not
19:20
actually they did they just invite us because he'd made
19:25
the wrong choice um speaking of uh great actors uh you
19:31
We're surrounded by a lot in New Zealand on Lord of the Rings uh I love the chemistry that you have with Orlando
19:39
um cuz he's going to hear this again by the way um I hope you crash his panelist i
19:45
really do uh simply because listen I kind of blame you for trying to tip over a boat when you guys were shooting just
19:52
saying it's something that he said uh he
19:57
call strange stuff speaking of as the dwarf
20:05
and the best dwarf who won
20:13
i would like to make something clear right at the beginning people just see
20:20
in canoes to try and teach us how to do the dwars canoist
20:26
[Music] as a problem so the and the find themselves in a canoe
20:37
that can depositing the dwarf and the elf in the
20:43
water the elf being the shallow little pooper
20:49
that he is it says in because the dwarf was off
20:57
balance the dwarf with his usual accustomed
21:02
dignity went to lunch and afterwards we
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reconvened this time the elf was in a canoe and
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with I will not name him but he could have been a hobbit
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and you will never guess what happened
21:28
it will over again so quite clear the first time it wasn't
21:35
the [Applause] [Music]
21:44
I love it um John I I have this theory
21:49
and and correct me if I'm wrong here but I have this theory that every single Indiana Jones movie happens to be better
21:56
ones [Music] i say that you're a good luck charm for
22:01
Indiana Jones i used to every time I ran into that deliberately ran into um
22:08
Steven Spielberg I used to say steal one and three marvelous
22:19
two and four there's something missing there
22:26
now i wonder what it could be and you would smile
22:34
stop talking about five it hurts too much
22:39
listen I feel that five look going back and rewatching time i don't think it's bad whatsoever i feel like what happened
22:46
was we were talking about this earlier we're all friends here movies movies just don't last the box office as long
22:52
anymore whether it be for people watching at home whatever it may be they're just not in theaters as much
22:58
anymore they can't get the run that they've been following people
23:03
well I would have said that if you want to make a nostalgia film you don't film it with people that are old friends of
23:10
Py that you've never met before is this true is this true here was that a
23:16
criticism oh no
23:22
yes the film hasn't made it back yet i think they're still working on it
23:29
i do want to ask you though about the the third Indiana Jones film because that's something we don't talk about a
23:34
ton um talk to me about your experience on that film talking about the third Indiana last
23:45
ultimate alpha male i mean we I mean
23:51
there are there are some old alpha males here and younger alpha males here but re
23:58
in reality we would owe a candle to to
24:03
um him being an ex fighter he'd been he was a tough gorous uh Glasgow kid who
24:11
grew up he was very goodlooking um and um and women were always found him
24:18
attractive uh oh was it yes jean Jean Simmons
24:24
no one was um a wonderful girl in line with captain um Oh come on
24:34
i'm happy to hear about it but anyway she was writing about it the other day and she was friends with a lovely
24:39
actress called Delete and um
24:45
and she said "I want you to come have a young can't get any work at the moment but I think he's got real sparing
24:51
quality and I think it was her that introduced her to Cubby Bronty." He used
24:56
he introduced Sean and Cubby broke um
25:01
of course didn't pay anybody any money in all the action and in the end that led to a real sort of very savage rift
25:10
between uh between Cully and uh uh and Connory um but it gave him a wonderful
25:19
start to have as an international star and he went on unlike some others he
25:27
went on then to really have a long life and be constantly reinventing
25:35
himself in movies um he always played himself but then
25:42
when you look like that and you've got that twinkle in your eye you know and every woman goes "Oh Sean
25:50
[Applause] if you've got it flaunted
25:58
but a magnificent star." Um I didn't I didn't ask Cambi about
26:05
another uh very shortlived um um James Bond as well uh he said "Well
26:13
you know he he you know I said at the end you know he doesn't know how to act
26:19
but then Sean didn't know how to act either until we actually sort of taught him how to do it." Um and in a way that
26:26
is that's that is correct cy Rocky represents really the last of
26:33
the old studio producer magnates um and they were
26:39
prepared to really look after theirs and develop
26:44
them uh and uh it was a great Italian
26:49
prince dear Oakley I've got one of Listen I can hear you talk all day about
26:56
some of these stories i feel like this is why we're all here this is There's no better way to close out a Friday than with you
27:03
[Applause] that's the truth listen I'm telling you
27:09
your stories are incredible you're such a wealth of knowledge from from from actors from the past from actors now
27:16
it's pretty impressive honestly you've lived a life man you know I have
27:23
I have done everything a boy should do i have flown planes and I was in a plane
27:28
crash and walked away from it not my flying if it be my body it would have crack
27:36
best always win you know I I've I've I've raced a few
27:42
cars i've I've been lost in the bush and got my way out i've u I've chased some
27:49
beautiful ladies and one or two of them were kind enough to slow down
27:56
and you said Sean Connory's nail no no no we all think of ourselves as
28:02
alpha males but just now and again there's a real real
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I'm sitting with one on the stage [Applause]
28:18
and obviously now the it's um I'm probably entering my last 35 years
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having had my 81st birthday here last month this month actually
28:32
[Music] I want to address this to all of you
28:39
younger people because everybody in this room is younger than me there are two things I want you to learn
28:46
do not retire unless you absolutely physically have to keep going if you
28:53
retire you will sit on the couch and die
28:58
um quickly uh I certainly would if I retired and didn't keep going so the
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trick is to find a job that will allow you to keep going
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that's your problem the second thing is this and I do want
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to pass this on to you i am probably going to die within the next year 2
29:23
years 3 years four years whatever that's not the point the point is don't
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be afraid of dying the great philosopher Senica wrote an
29:38
essay about this saying look men live all their lives in fear of death and
29:45
it's absurd because we are all going to die uh so what he says is imagine in your
29:53
mind how you will die now for him uh being the uh the tutor of was it Nero
30:01
or yes it was was it Nero or was it like
30:06
the dumbest guy in this room I would one one of the uh one one of the really
30:12
monstrous young things imagine being his tutor and uh anyway he he he gunned for
30:19
him quite well but then the message came you will go to your place and uh and
30:25
remove yourself or the guards will be coming in and they will kill you so he
30:30
went into the bath moved his veins and um and ended his life that way but his
30:37
point is this if you are afraid of death imagine how
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you could die how you would die or what the probable way you'll die is and and
30:51
work your way through that so when that moment comes closer you recognize the
30:58
scenario and you know how to behave
31:05
the most important thing we as parents can give to our children
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is that certain knowledge that we have taught them not how just how to live but
31:17
how to die everyone will die let us die with the
31:23
maximum dignity that we can i when I was a teenage boy I was in love
31:29
with Kate kate was the love of my life uh and like
31:35
a 17year-old boy does I said "I love you Kate i will always love you i will hold
31:42
you in my arms when you die." Well thankfully she ran away from me
31:50
we had two wonderful and separate lives but we always remained friends and I
31:56
took my daughter to meet her uh last year in March because I wanted to show
32:03
her how a 78-year-old woman is still making a positive was still making a
32:10
positive contribution to the education of of children in remote Indian schools
32:16
in Panama kate was not very well so we took her to the doctor the doctor diagnosed uh
32:24
intestinal cancer uh she had a surgery and then I took her and a couple of
32:31
other school friends of mine off as I do for a little draw sometimes um and and
32:37
we went to Vienna we went to a wonderful wedding of a friend of ours in uh in the
32:43
Tong she came back and then sheh had recurrence of it and I did I then
32:51
spent uh about two months with her um
32:58
just to be there at at the end and it was wonderful
33:03
we we had so much laughter we had so much fun we listened to the
33:09
music that we wanted to listen to and we talked about all the important things
33:15
three days before she died uh she uh she was sitting in a wheelchair
33:23
on the verander and I came up the stairs and said "Good morning Kitty how are you this morning?" And she opened her eyes
33:31
fixated on my shirt and she said "Take that shirt off and
33:36
give it to Vania to wash you've got a stain on it." That's a woman three days away from death
33:43
two days away from death um John
33:53
go away keep everyone out of the room keep everyone out of the room i want to say my prayers all right darling so
34:03
end of the room no one can come in right and I'm listening to her and it's
34:11
God I'm ready to go please take me now you know it's this is really very boring
34:19
it's boring it's boring me it's boring everybody just let me go now i'm I'm angry okay
34:26
let let's go and she ran like this for about 2 minutes and then she was exhausted so I finally went back to the
34:32
bed and looked down at her and she opened her eyes and said
34:39
"Slow i'm not going to die today i might as well have a shower."
34:46
And the last day she was very weak and um she said something and I could not I
34:53
could not hear it so I said "Say that again Kitty i I can't hear you." And she
34:58
leaned forward and she kissed my cheek and
35:05
relaxed back on the pillow and I looked at her and she looked at me and she smiled and what it was was
35:13
thank you I love goodbye
35:19
that is the way we must help our friends our lovers
35:27
our our relatives to die with that support
35:32
and fired look I played that once and I
35:38
had the great privilege of knowing that in those moments when you know you're
35:44
going to die I wasn't going "Oh my god oh my god I'm going to die." For me it was "Oh rude word." But will you [ __ ]
35:54
oh [ __ ] what a stupid way to die
36:03
and it was it was like a great great blanket of depression on me you know i
36:08
just thought stupid stupid stupid i couldn't
36:14
and the only thing was I told the pilot I couldn't see how we could make the takeoff i had 13 hours as a student
36:21
pilot and I knew it wasn't safe he was a bloody professional pilot so when we hit
36:29
the tree and it came back uh and snapped him off his seat and he came back and he
36:36
virtually guillotine the bottom of my leg i had no compunction in trying to
36:41
push the seat and him onto the tree to move the plane back i got it i really
36:48
didn't care if I killed it cuz the city bucket just tried to kill me but that's beside the
36:56
point is live your life joyously
37:02
fully and as free of of fear as you can
37:07
be do not be afraid of death all of us
37:13
will die but let's do it in the best positive manner that we can
37:20
what actually we're out of time
37:29
if you do I would highly recommend meeting John at his booth get a picture grab a photo share your experience this
37:37
guy has stories for days he'll share his his experiences with you as well um believe me it's the best money you were
37:43
going to spend at this convention just like this is the best Friday that you could have spent at this convention
37:52
[Applause] when Tommy actually gets on the stage and says "First of all AI I think we've
37:58
just seen the beginning of the end of humanity." And ends up saying "Don't be afraid of
38:03
death." You're really bummed brother [Applause]
38:15
just much for I told you guys you guys have a great show tonight
38:23
go crazy no but yes John will be here all all the other two days Saturday and Sunday please meet him he's a fantastic
38:30
man um he needs live some life believe you me thank you John thank you
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