WARWICK DAVIS, the 3ft 6in actor who shot to accidental fame in Star Wars and went on to become a fixture in the Harry Potter series, likens his latest project to the perfect cake.

“It’s as if I sat there and thought ‘Right, what would make the perfect comedy series?

Let’s have a bit of BBC2, a bit of HBO, get Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant to write and direct it’,” he says.

“All these ingredients have come together and hopefully the cake we’ve concocted will be enjoyed by viewers all over the world.”

A stylistic cross between Gervais and Merchant’s past successes The Office and Extras, the new show, called Life’s Too Short, is a mockumentary following Davis’s day-to-day life as a jobbing dwarf actor. The twist comes from a host of famous faces, including Liam Neeson, Sting and Johnny Depp, turning up to make fun of their public personas.

“I’d never met Johnny before and it was just fantastic to hang out with him,” says Davis, 41, whose two children Annabel, 13, and Harrison, seven, along with his wife Samantha, joined their dad on set that day. “He gave them each a set of beads from Captain Jack’s hair and signed autographs and pictures. He’s a really good guy.”

While the show examines other people’s reaction to Davis (“and makes them look stupid in the way they react against me”), his own character isn’t without flaws.

“The Warwick Davis in the show shares the same career background as me but he’s egotistical and fame-hungry,” explains Davis.

“He was quite successful at one point but it’s all gone a bit wrong, so he’s really trying to put his career back on track and thinks asking a documentary crew to follow him will boost his profile.”

Born with a rare genetic disorder in 1970, he was 11 years old and just 2ft 11in when his grandmother heard a radio request for people under 4ft to star in George Lucas’s new film Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi.

He met a production assistant at the studios who took one look at him and asked: ‘Do you like Star Wars?’ “That was it. They cast me on my height alone,” he remembers.

When fellow dwarf actor Kenny Baker got food poisoning the day they were due to shoot a pivotal scene between Princess Leah and an Ewok, Lucas called Davis in to replace him.

“And I became Wicket the Ewok from them on in,” says Davis.

Four years later, when Davis was 17, he got a call from Lucas and was offered the lead role in fantasy film Willow.

Over the years, he has resumed his role of Wicket in spin-off movies, played part of the Goblin Corps opposite David Bowie in fantasy caper Labyrinth, performed the role of talking rodent Reepicheep in a TV adaptation of Prince Caspian, The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, and appeared as Mr Glimfeather in The Silver Chair.

In 1993, he jumped at the chance to play the titular role in comedy horror Leprechaun.

“I needed to show I could diversify or I’d be typecast forever and he was such a fun, evil character to play,” says Davis, who appeared in a further five Leprechaun movies.

His cult following led to another role in a film franchise about a certain boy wizard. “I likened Harry Potter to school and each movie was like a new term. Now we’ve all graduated,” says Davis, who played Professor Flitwick.

It was while filming Harry Potter that Davis received a call from Ricky Gervais.

“He told me he and Stephen were creating this new series and wanted to see if I’d take part. He also wanted to check it would be okay if he accidentally kicked me in the face in one of the scenes.

“I said, ‘Seeing as it’s you, it’d be an honour’,” remembers Davis – and that very scene wound up in series two of Extras.

Afew years later it was Davis calling Gervais with an idea for a new comedy. “I’d had some interest from companies wanting to film myself and my family,” he explains. “I was like, ‘No, I’m an actor, that’s what I do’ and I didn’t want to invite cameras into my house.”

But it got him thinking there was the potential to have fun with the set-up. And after listening to his anecdotes about growing up as a little person, Gervais and Merchant used them as the foundation for Life’s Too Short.