With a decades-long career as an actor and stuntman, Verne Troyer was best known for playing "Mini-Me," Dr. Evil's smaller and more concentrated pure evil protégé, in the hit comedies Austin Powers - agentti joka tuuppasi minua (1999) and Austin Powers ja Kultamuna (2002), and for his role in Harry Potter ja viisasten kivi (2001). Troyer, born in Sturgis, Michigan, had always dreamed of getting into showbiz. Shortly after his high school graduation in 1987, he moved with some friends to Arlington, Texas, where, in 1993, he got his first break as a stunt double for a 9-month-old baby on the film Vauva vapaalla (1994). In his early years of film and television work, he often portrayed animals or small children.