The Rings of Power's Sophia Nomvete on her female dwarf: "There were all sorts of lengths discussed with the beard"

gamesradar.com:

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has brought J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth back to the screen – and, for the very first time, female Dwarves are present. Sophia Nomvete plays Disa, the stone-singing princess of Khazad-dûm introduced in the show's second episode. She's an immediately striking presence and looks set to be one of the show's many standout performances.

Of course, with playing the very first female dwarf, there comes some controversy: namely, where's the beard? That's the question seemingly on everyone's lips, mainly thanks to a certain famous interaction in Peter Jackson's The Two Towers between Gimli, Aragorn, and Eowyn. 

"It's true you don't see many dwarf women," Gimli tells Eowyn as they travel to Helm's Deep. "And in fact, they are so alike in voice and appearance, that they are often mistaken for dwarf men."

Aragorn intercuts: "It's the beards."

To which Gimli continues: "And this, in turn, has given rise to the belief that there are no dwarf women, and that dwarves just spring out of holes in the ground! Which is, of course, ridiculous."

Tolkien himself wrote in the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings that Dwarves: "They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart."

There's no direct line from Tolkien about female Dwarves actually having beards, but stating that they look like male Dwarves, and male Dwarves all have beards, heavily implies that they do have beards. Either way, in The Rings of Power, Disa does have sideburns and a sprinkling of face fluff under her chin – a design that Nomvete discussed at length with the showrunners.

"The conversation was brilliantly