Previously a professional actor and singer, Paul Lewis’s career as a puppeteer and puppet-maker began in 2016, when he was cast as one of the puppeteers in residence at Whoa! Studios in his home city of Auckland, New Zealand.

He spent four years at the studios performing, designing and building numerous puppet characters for live shows, as well as for the TV series Custard’s World and Custard’s World: Kea Kaha, in which he performed the title role of Custard, amongst many others.

Subsequent screen credits as a puppeteer and puppet-maker include all three seasons of Sweet Tooth on Netflix (leading the puppetry of Bobby the gopher-boy); M3GAN; The Rule of Jenny Pen (puppet design, puppet coach to John Lithgow and additional puppetry); A Minecraft Movie (on-set performance as Dennis the Wolf) and The Tank.

Stage credits as designer/puppeteer/puppet coach include Asra, Five Go on an Adventure, Madagascar the Musical, Over My Dead Body Little Black Bitch and A Fine Balance.

Paul has also designed and built puppets for, and puppeteered on, numerous short films, music videos and commercials, both abroad and in New Zealand, most recently creating Hell Pizza’s ventriloquist doll mascot, Clive.

In 2024 he performed The Wizard, one of the Muppet “Weirdos” that appeared onstage with Coldplay in their Music of the Spheres tour during their New Zealand dates.

Other credits in 2025/2026 include designing and fabricating the bookworm Dewey for the new children’s TV show, Mr Hugo’s Little Library; puppeteering for the movies Evil Dead Burn and Evil Dead Wrath (for which he also provided 3D sculpting); as well as puppeteering on ad campaigns for the brands Telstra and Publix, both of which were filmed in Sydney, Australia.