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 nearly 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, among many others.

Although Paul is self-taught as a puppeteer, he was fortunate to have the opportunity to be mentored by veteran Muppet performer Peter Linz (Walter in The Muppets, Ernie on Sesame Street) during his time at Whoa! Studios.

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) and A Minecraft Movie (on-set reference performance as Dennis the Wolf, as well as designing and building the proxy puppet he performed with).

Theatre 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.

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.

Credits during 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) and returning to the world of Minecraft in A Minecraft Movie Squared, once again providing the on-set reference for Dennis the Wolf and also redesigning and building a new proxy puppet version of Dennis.

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 the ventriloquist doll mascot, Clive, for iconic NZ brand Hell Pizza, as well as puppeteering on ad campaigns for the brands Telstra and Publix, both of which were filmed in Sydney, Australia, a new campaign for Chorus NZ and a yet-to-be announced campaign on which he co-designed and then built the puppets, as well as led the puppeteering team.