John Rhys-Davies says he's had nightmares about providing the voice of Treebeard in the new Lord Of The Rings film.

As well as voicing the new character, Rhys-Davies will again be seen playing the dwarf Gimli in The Two Towers.

He says when director Peter Jackson first asked him to provide the voice of the Ent he thought "Oh good, more money!"

"Then my nightmares began," Rhys-Davies tells www.scifi.com. "I've had more cold sweats, more waking up in the middle of the night thinking, 'God, how do I play this bloody thing?' than you can imagine.

"How the hell do you make a walking and talking tree work? What does a tree sound like? I asked this question to a talk-show host in New York City. He had three friends who were Tolkien experts and he faxed them the question, 'How does a tree talk?'" he says.

"They each sent back a letter. Every one of them disagreed with my own instinctive way of doing it. And one of them actually said the only person who really could do this was James Earl Jones. And with that I concur utterly. But you've got to try these things."

Source: Press Release