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.