There Was A Second Secret Actor Playing Gimli In The Lord Of The Rings

Indeed, Beattie's Gimli face was more elaborate than that of the other substitutes. He says hobbit character replacements basically wore pull-on-the-head masks. If they felt claustrophobic, they could take the masks off and breathe. Beattie had to wear the full Gimli outfit and was on call at all hours. A shift at Gimli could last up to 12 hours. Beattie also admits to suffering from insomnia on set and often had to take naps in Gimli's makeup and costume. Once awake, Beattie didn't know where he was, but he knew he must be Gimli. He said:

"I would wake up - 'Brett, let's go!' - and the next thing I knew, I was running through Fangorn Forest or the Mines of Moria, chased by goblins. I wasn't awake, I wasn't sleeping, I found myself in this state of consciousness really crazy."

Beattie recalls watching one of the fight scenes from 'Lord of the Rings' and was able to identify which shots were of him and which were of Rhys-Davies. Counting the shots, he found that all but four seconds of a particular edit were his. He surmises that, all things considered, he probably played Gimli for a total of 2,300 hours. That's 189 consecutive days as a warrior dwarf. Sounds exhausting.

Beattie did a lot of the heavy lifting for Gimli. No wonder he got a tattoo. Beattie was tenth of the Nine. Give credit where credit is due.