Kiran Shah is a 63-year-old Kenyan-Indian actor, stuntman, creature performer and motion capture performer.
Kiran was born on September 28, 1956, in Nairobi, Kenya. He lived with his family in Kenya's capital for 12 years before moving to India. However, his family was forced to move to Crawley, West Essex in England due to his father's ill health.
According to the actor's webiste, www.littlekiran.com, It was during this time that he discovered his love for art.
At the age of 17, with support from his older brother Kiran auditioned for an advertisement on Timeout magazine for the Red Buddha Theatre Company. He got the role of a lead clown mime artist and went on to tour with the company to Italy with the play 'Man From The East'.
In 1976, Kiran appeared in his first film 'Candleshoe' as a stand-in for one of the main characters. Stunt coordinator Bob Anderson asked him to perform stunts for the same character and from then, his career took off.
In his journey to the top, the Kenyan born actor has performed stunts and featured in many blockbuster films.
Kiran appeared in Spiderman and Spiderman II, where he featured as a stunt double for Christopher Reeves. He was also in the movie Aliens, performing stunts for the character Newt. In Titanic, Kiran performed a number of high falls as the ship sank and also the scene when Leonardo found and helped a little boy. Others movies include James Bond, Harry Potter and many others.
Kiran spent four years in New Zealand working on Peter Jackson’s trilogy, Lord of The Rings. He worked as a scale and stunt double for all four hobbits. It is surprising how many times you see Kiran on-screen without knowing it’s him.
Kiran was pleased to return to New Zealand for a year filming Chronicles of Narnia, he played the part of the white witch ‘Ginaarbrik’.
He has also worked on many television productions, some of which include Worzel Gummidge as a scarecrow, Keith Harris Show, the original TV series of Chronicles of Narnia as the badger.
Kiran performed many characters on TFI Friday, Chunky the Monk and impersonating Tom Cruise with Anthony Edwards were crowd favourites.
Kiran also writes poetry, his work has been published in Britain and America. His poems are based on his thoughts and feelings about the places he has been and the experiences he has had.
Kiran has had the pleasure of working with some of the best directors of all time including Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Ridley Scott, Terry Gilliam, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ken Russell, Andrew Adamson, Michael Winner and many more.
Since 2003, Kiran became a Guinness World Record holder as the shortest professional stuntman currently working in the film industry.
In 2010, Kiran also became a Guinness World Record holder by being the shortest wing walker. This involved Kiran being strapped to the wing of a 1940′s Boeing Spearman biplane and travelling at the speed of 120mph at 300m (1000ft) in the air.
