Rhys-Davies Whips Up 'Indiana Jones' Memories
Actor Played Indy's Ally Sallah In 'Raiders,' 'Crusade'
Tim Lammers, Web Staff EditorSome actors are only lucky enough to be associated with one great film in their careers, let alone a great film trilogy. But for acclaimed Welsh actor John Rhys-Davies, his name is associated with two trilogies, and a classic television miniseries, to boot.
Rhys-Davies is stoked knowing the first trilogy he was involved in, "The Adventures of Indiana Jones" and the 1980 miniseries was "Shogun," have both finally made their long-awaited arrivals on DVD (Paramount Home Entertainment). And on top of that, he's still swinging his axe as the witty dwarf, Gimli, in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.
To say life is good for Rhys-Davies is an understatement.
"It has been a blast," the 59-year-old Rhys-Davies told me in a recent @ The Movies interview. "If you hear that I got run down by a car tomorrow, you will know that this man had an absolutely marvelous time."
Rhys-Davies, of course, played Indiana's (Harrison Ford) loyal ally Sallah in the first and third films of the trilogy, "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." And whether his films are based on original material like the "Indiana Jones" films or classic novels like James Clavell's "Shogun" or J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," he says the success of those films boils down to one simple thing: the written word.
"That's what so many people don't understand at all -- it's about telling a story," Rhys-Davies boomed in his thick British accent. "Nevermind the highfalutin film school crap about an auteur theory and all that nonsense. In the end, it's about people sitting around the fire and one of them saying 'Once upon a time.' It should be about the condition of being human, and it should be of muse and delight."
The brainchild of producer-writer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg, there's no question "Indiana Jones" has delighted audiences -- much in the tradition of the Saturday afternoon adventure serials they were based upon.
But while the films were rooted in the tradition of serials, Rhys-Davies recalled that he and his fellow cast members, as well as Lucas and Spielberg, had to approach the film with a fresh perspective.
"I loved the serials, too, but you learn to leave so much behind when you do a film," Rhys-Davies said. "A film isn't just solely a literal reference to a tradition, it has a soul and a life to itself or it won't live and breathe by itself, and Spielberg knew all of that, so we left all that to him.
So, instead of trying to re-create the feel of the serials with his role, Rhys-Davies did what an actor is expected to do on a film set: He followed direction.
"Our job was to follow Spielberg's direction faithfully," Rhys-Davies said. "Basically, he said, 'We're going to shoot fast, we're going to print fast and we'll even print mistakes. We're going to get the film on the canvas as quickly as we can while it's still fresh. That way we'll get a spontaneity that this film needs in order to breathe and live."
Speaking of living and breathing, Rhys-Davies was grateful of Lucas and Spielberg for bringing him back for a second time as Sallah.
"I felt quite delighted when they said they were going to bring back some of the characters from the first film to the third one," Rhys-Davies said. "How lucky can you get, for God's sake? I could have been one of the characters that was killed off."
And, Rhys-Davies says, he'd love to be in the fourth installment of the "Indiana Jones" saga if and when it happens.
"I want to get the character right -- I still think I can nail the character a bit better next time," he said.
How Rhys-Davies will give that character a different creative spin is still up in the air. It's something he'll have to see in the script -- and he hopes the filmmakers are kind.
"You never know, it might be the death of Sallah," Rhys-Davies mused. "They'll say, 'Kill that S.O.B. off."
But more than anything, Rhys-Davies wants another shot at an "Indiana Jones" film to break a mini-curse that befell him on "Raiders" and "The Last Crusade."
"Those two films are the only two films where I've fallen ill," Rhys-Davies recalled. "So I'd like to do another film with Mr. Spielberg just to show him that normally I get through these things without any trouble at all."
In sickness or in health (and hoping death won't part us from Sallah in the next "Indy" film), Rhys-Davies is happy that his work has moved people in a positive way. He's glad that he's been in films that can not only entertain, but inform audiences, too.
He recalled for me his time in Hiroshima playing Vasco Rodrigues (opposite Richard Chamberlain) for "Shogun," when the magnitude of the project hit him.
"I met a senator's assistant, there -- I forgot what his name was -- but when he discovered I was working on 'Shogun,' he told me that he was working for the Hearts and Minds program of Vietnam and had to read 200-300 books on the Asian mind and the Asian minds to prepare for it," Rhys-Davies said.
"He said, 'If I just would have read "Shogun" I would have learned more about Asia and the Asian mind than any other thing. It was an absolute revelation."
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