As a dwarf, Kiruna Stamell has suffered discrimination, but she refuses to let it stop her getting on with a successful acting career, writes Lorne Jackson.
As Dorothy discovered during her extended vacation in Oz, witches are not very nice creatures.
In fact, they’re downright nasty.
Their personal hygiene is highly suspect, for a start. Which explains the tendency for warts to form on the ends of their knobbly noses.
And they hardly ever pick up a toothbrush. No wonder their teeth are buckled, broken and as brown as an Essex girl’s bikini line.
Witches are also the very worst people to sit behind in the cinema.
Their pointy hats obscure your view completely, and they’re likely to laugh – sorry, cackle – at all the wrong moments in the movie. When the brave hero’s life support system is switched off, for instance. Or when Jennifer Aniston discovers her long-term boyfriend is demanding an extended break.
Even if you tap the witch on the shoulder, and politely ask her to pipe down, she’ll only go and turn you into a hotdog. Then smear mustard over you and gobble you all up.
Nope. Witches are most definitely not to be suffered. That’s why Kiruna Stamell will be delighted to hear a few boos when she takes to the stage at the Mac.
She’s playing a very wicked witch in The Lost Happy Endings, the Birmingham venue’s Christmas production.
Roars of disapproval from the audience will mean she’s doing a wicked job of being wicked.
But what Kiruna really hates is to be treated with contempt when she’s not part of a fun family show.
Unfortunately bigoted idiots often attempt to make her feel less than human – because of her height.
Kiruna is a dwarf, and has suffered prejudice from many people, both in and out of the entertainment industry.
Discrimination hasn’t stopped her being a success. As well as her starring role at the mac, she can be seen in the new Ricky Gervais comedy, Life’s Too Short.
Her career is going well, but there have been many moments of anguish and frustration.
Financing her way through university, she once applied for an admin job in a law office.
One of her friends was already working there, and spotted Kiruna’s CV on the boss’s desk.
“She happened to mention my height,” says Kiruna. “And the boss took the CV off the desk and immediately dropped it in the trash in front of her.
“He then said the lawyers would feel really out of place, having to bend over for the fax machine, if they kept it low where I could reach it.
“That was my first real experience of work-place discrimination.”
Less driven individuals might have allowed the experience to scar them. Not Kiruna.
She couldn’t get a job in the law office. So she bagged something more glam, instead.
A part in Moulin Rouge!.
Kiruna, who was brought up in Australia, trained in dance. And she got to throw some mean shapes in the blockbuster movie. She was very impressed by the film’s iconic director, Baz Luhrmann.
“It just so happened that the woman who was in charge of auditions said: ‘Let me just explain to the director that you can really dance.’
“Then it was just great that Baz was so open-minded.
“Because so many people would have just taken one look at me and said: ‘Oh, yeah, as if she could do anything like that.’
“Then they would just have squeezed me into a role that was comic.
“But Baz gave me a proper audition, during which I said: ‘Y’know, the choreography is really easy, so why don’t I just improvise, so that you can see what I can do.’
“And from that, my part just grew.”
“Baz is just a very lovely man,” adds Kiruna. “He’s someone who’s very mindful. He notices good work and effort. You really feel that he’s clocked you, which is quite amazing on a set where there’s four or five hundred other people at any one time.”
The film opened many showbiz doors for Kiruna, and helped her build the career she is now enjoying.
“It gave me the funds to help me through university,” she says. “It also helped me to come over to England, so I could start working in the UK. But Moulin Rouge! was also a surreal experience for me. It was my first job, and I was only 18 turning 19. I was probably too nervous to relax and really just experience it.
“Nicole Kidman would be really lovely and introduce herself to me on set. But I’d be too busy trying not to pass out. So I wasn’t as generous as I should have been. It was like stepping into Doctor Who’s TARDIS. Having an amazing adventure, then coming back out the other side, and your friends and family having no idea what’s just happened to you.”
Afterwards Kiruna travelled to England to study Shakespearian and Jacobean drama.
“I also came because it was a time in the UK where diversity was really starting to be appreciated. So there were more opportunities for me. As much as I love Australia, and it’s a fantastic place to grow up, in terms of the arts, it’s quite conservative.”
Kiruna has certainly made an impact in the UK. As well as working in theatre, she’s dabbled in TV.
Parts have included playing a prominent character in EastEnders, as well as that high profile role in the Ricky Gervais vehicle, Life’s Too Short.
The comedy stars Warwick Davis as a fictionalised, hugely distorted, version of himself.
In the show he plays a dwarf actor with a monstrous ego. Kiruna appears alongside him as his girlfriend.
Some have criticised Life’s Too Short for poking fun at those of small stature.
But Kiruna says that’s certainly not the case: “Initially I was really nervous, because I get worried about dwarf-specific roles.
“I’ve had a lot of comedic scripts that I’ve found quite offensive. I think that Life’s Too Short is challenging for audiences. But, though I hate to say it, I think that’s because there’s not enough diversity on television. And that’s why people are shocked, and why they’re finding it so offensive.
“There’s a scene when Warwick can’t reach a doorbell, and you see how humiliating that is. But that’s just the truth. I can’t reach a doorbell, so I have to ask a stranger.
“And I have no control how that stranger will react to me.
“I find it interesting that what people are shocked by in the show is the stuff that is uncannily real.”
In one squirmishly savage scene, Helena Bonham Carter (also playing a fictional version of herself) treats Warwick Davis with unfettered contempt.
Acting opposite him, she insists that he is placed in a bin, while the camera is focused on her, so she doesn’t have to gaze upon him.
Obviously this is an exaggeration, though Kiruna says that in her experience, it’s not far from the truth.
“The script is full of things that I’ve actually experienced. I had a terrible time once with David Gest. Y’know, the one who was married to Liza Minnelli.”
Kiruna groans. “I was auditioning for him, and, oh my god, his attitude to little people was just so patronising and bizarre that I walked out.”
What exactly did he do?
“He wanted a group of people with dwarfism, who were ‘funny’ looking, to dance around him. He was giving us this whole spiel, saying: ‘Oh, I love little people. A little person lived on my street, once.’
“Did he know her name? No. So it wasn’t a friend – just this random woman with dwarfism. He’d pulled her out of a hat to justify himself.
“Then he starts going on about his vague link to The Wizard Of Oz, since Judy Garland was his ex-wife’s mother. He starts saying that he’d always respected the Munchkins.
“I walked out. I said: ‘I’m really sorry, but I find what you want me to do really offensive.’
“And the producer said to me: ‘Right, you better leave then.’
“I stood my ground and said: ‘Wouldn’t you like to talk to me about why I’m leaving?’ But he just said: ‘No, you better go.’
“And I just walked out, and didn’t look back.
“The choreographer for the show, who had seen some of my work, gave me a look that said: ‘I know where you’re coming from. Run!’
“So in my opinion, Life’s Too Short is really informed, and really sharp. Unfortunately, as soon as you put disability or difference on the screen, it is still so knew that people are uncomfortable with it.”
There should certainly be no controversy or feelings of awkwardness over The Lost Happy Endings, which is a very fine show, celebrating the magic and power of fairy tales.
Based on a story by the poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, the play was shown at the Mac last year, and is quickly turning into a classic.
And Kiruna, who is based in London, is happy to be such an integral part of it. Even with those boisterous boos and hisses.
“It’s been wonderful working in Birmingham,” she says. “There’s such a lot of exciting and genuinely ground-breaking work in this region. I’d really love to return and work here again, sometime.”
* The Lost Happy Endings is at Mac Birmingham from now until Jan 7. For more information www.macarts.co.uk or tel: 0121 446 3232.
