In an interview with Empire this week, John Rhys-Davies has said he's not interested in a role in "The Hobbit"...at least, not as a dwarf.
Rhys-Davies famously developed an allergic reaction to his dwarf makeup while playing Gimli, which (as he recounts in a number of the LOTR Extended Edition DVD features) gave him a godawful, painful, socially stigmatizing rash.
Rhys-Davies also provided some interesting commentary on the challenge of the new films having 13 dwarves as main characters:
"Why would you want to do it if it was just a couple of shots? When you've been 1 of 1, why would you want to be 1 of 13?...
They've got a different set of problems with The Hobbit because you've got 13 dwarves, a whole band of them... You're trying to represent a whole race... You're trying to do for dwarves what The Lord of the Rings did for hobbits. " -John Rhys-Davies, to Empire
I like that approach---using the gaggle of dwarves not just to paint different personalities, but the facets of the race as a whole.
Rhys-Davies also provided the voice for Treebeard in "The Lord of the Rings", so this doesn't rule out his completing a trifecta, though he notes a desire to try something different---"perhaps an elf".
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