Shah has a strong claim to have appeared in more blockbuster movies than anyone else on Earth. He discusses upbraiding Brando, smoking with Christopher Reeve, slanging matches with James Cameron – and a shocking experience at a party with Freddie Mercury

It was 1976 when Kiran Shah saw the advert that would change his life. “It was a sci-fi film looking for a little guy,” he says. Shah turned up at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire and was introduced to a nervous young man named George Lucas. “He said: ‘Can you get in that dustbin thing?’ I was a bit too tall for it but I got in, they put the lid on, and he said: ‘Can you look left, look right?’” Shah didn’t realise he was auditioning for the role of R2-D2 in Star Wars. He didn’t get the job – it went to Kenny Baker – but Lucas’s casting director liked Shah, and got him an agent, which set him on the path of an almost 50-year career as “the world’s shortest stuntman”.

There are very few blockbusters Shah has not been in. You might not recognise him – he is often doubling for another character or he’s disguised under prosthetics as a mythical creature. But he has played more Star Wars characters than he can count, doubled for every hobbit in The Lord of the Rings movies, did Christopher Reeve’s stunts in the Superman movies, and played every single child in Titanic (which is even more impressive given that he can’t swim).

He has also worked with just about every blockbuster director out there: Lucas, James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Ridley Scott, Terry Gilliam, JJ Abrams. Shah’s stature (he is just under 4ft 2in, or 126cm, according to Guinness World Records), combined with his fearlessness, have helped him find a niche in cinema that has led to an absurdly storied career, not to mention an MBE last month for his services to the film industry.