Michele Hewitson interview: Marc Ellis

Marc Ellis has turned his clever mind to many things and, despite being rich enough to take time off, he is not ready to slow down. Photo / Dean Purcell

Extrovert businessman has changed tack again — now he’s in marketing.

Since I last saw Marc Ellis, 10 years ago, he has got married, had two kids, made many millions and pretended to blow up Rangitoto (that is not an exhaustive list). As far as I know he has given up streaking. In other words, he must be properly grown up now. He is 43 and, except for the hair - greying but better that than not having hair, he reckoned - he looks, most annoyingly, no older than he did 10 years ago. He still looks like a rascal. So all grown up? I asked and he said: "Nah." I thought it unlikely that he has given up pranks.

I wanted to go to his posh house which he says is not very posh and, because of the kids, "has chips in the skirting boards". But, nah, as expected. But I could go to his "men's club" at a "secret location" - a "scabby" lane behind Karangahape Rd - and have the "dubious honour" of being the only woman ever allowed in. That last was rot - he had his daughter's birthday party there - but it is not designed to be enticing to sheilas. We were supposed to be having lunch which was to be chips and beer. We had beer.

There was no wine. I complained about this although I knew there wouldn't be. I should have told him I wanted wine, he said. Not likely. Ten years ago I said, oh, he probably drank wine, now that he was a rich businessman and he said: "Oh. Don't. Be. Stupid." He drank Speights, he said. He still does. I drank half a beer. Was there a loo? There was, but no paper. He showed me the loo. "See, it's not your ideal loo." It may be his idea of a joke loo. The men's club is his idea of a joke gentlemen's club, on one hand; on the other it is his ideal gentlemen's club. It has cricket nets and a bowling machine which nearly killed him one night when he was batting there alone.

There are movie seats and a juke box and dart boards and beer fridges. I don't think there's a cleaner. It is for him and his mates and membership is by invitation only. There is a rack of tweed jackets to be worn when the club's patron is in attendance. The patron has a special stick which is kept on the wall beneath a copper plate etched with the face of a Maori warrior and which must be hongied on arrival. He wouldn't tell me who the patron is but he is an MP and "a character" so it must be Winston Peters, I said. He later said that I'd guessed right, but who knows with him? The publicist told me she'd told him that inviting me here would make him "look like a sexist" but that of course he didn't care. He didn't.

I wasn't exactly sure what it is he does now. He said he doesn't know what he has on his business card and he didn't have one on him. Director, or company director, he thought.

He has a small ad agency, Media Blanco, so it is safe enough to assume that he is in marketing.

This was the reason for going to see him. He is now into buskers, sort of, which sounds a bit like a stunt with purpose and of course it is. It is an online busking competition - www.feelingthestreet.com - in which you get virtual dollars to throw into virtual buskers' hats to vote for the top six buskers from around the world. It's a marketing campaign, of course, for Toyota.

He has always been in marketing, really, and he is very good at it. I said that if anyone else had tried to sell an idea for selling cars by running a busking talent show on line, I wouldn't have been here. He said that his brand "was irrelevant". Good try. "Well, then, I guess maybe I'm underplaying myself!" He has thus far managed to sell the idea of Marc Ellis as a rugby player turned silly telly star turned juice seller - all of which has been serious business dressed up as underplayed buffoonery.

He is serious about work. He did a stint on radio after selling the juice company, Charlie's; his share was reported to be about $18 million. He didn't have to work, ever again, but the idea of slacking would fill him with horror, so he took a job which involved getting up at 5.30am, which seems like madness.

His madnesses are carefully calculated (everything he does is). He knows what too often happens to people who win Lotto. And, "while I think I've got my head screwed on, people invariably make those mistakes ... in the first couple of years. So I just wanted to make sure there was no chance of that creeping in." I wondered whether he had a secret fear that he might actually be one - a slacker - but that really was mad. "No, I didn't. Not at all. I just wanted disciplines put in place that meant that it could be ... two years before I went: 'Well, that was quite good'. And by that stage, it's irrelevant. There was quite a measured approach."

Even his pranks are measured while retaining the desired effect of spontaneity. Blowing up Rangitoto for an ad stunt? He had to apologise (he'd say only to the humourless bores, so who cares?) but even the apology was calculated. "Because if you didn't it was going to cost you more. But the only thing that was damaged, quite ironically, was the plastic sign saying: No fires. That melted in half." Some prank. He even went to the lengths of becoming HASNO (handling hazardous substances) certified. "I could legally carry 800 kilos of fertiliser in my boot. That would effectively constitute one hell of a big bomb."

He likes to think that he is not any more driven than most people. He said that he would love to learn another language and to learn to play a musical instrument. Why doesn't he? He could easily afford to take a year off. He said: "I've got a few things I still want to do here. We started this business three or four years ago and I'd like to get to a position where we're sort of pissing a few of the big boys off. Ha, ha."

He calls this being competitive, not combative, but he has always seemed combative, in a way made palatable because tempered by his easy-going, Kiwi bloke persona. It was certainly his telly persona and he says now that: "I think that was dialled up for the benefit of television." But also that: "I didn't like losing and I didn't mind celebrating if I [won]."

He is very clever and he has very good timing, comic and otherwise. His idea of clever is knowing when to jump. He regards his life (as much as he regards it at all) as a series of chapters. Rugby was a chapter. Telly was another. He got out of telly because "I didn't want to do that when my kids came along. That's not the life I want to portray myself as, as a father."

I was thinking of the three sheets to the wind appearance on Sportscafe: "It was easy fun. I was paid to have half a dozen beers." I was also thinking, alas, of the Brazilian waxing episode in Matthew and Marc's Rocky Road To... I asked whether he thought that sort of stuff wasn't dignified, for a father. We get along pretty well, but we do speak different languages at times and this was such a time. He said: "It's nothing to do with that!" Of course not. Such an idea would never have occurred to him. He said: "I just don't think it's a very realistic world. You know, walking down the street and somebody recognising you. You can't put a price on anonymity and when it's my anonymity, I can deal with that. I've got the personality and I'm probably overt enough to handle somebody saying, 'Gidday'. But if you're still on TV you have them going: 'Why is Dad different from dad next door?' And I didn't want that."

People thought, and still do think, they know him. He has always been, roughly, himself. "Yeah. So when people saw you at a pub, they go: 'Gidday.' I remember going with Jeff Wilson, who is obviously a great footy player, but people didn't know who Jeff Wilson was and they go up and harangue him to get to know him. Whereas [with him] everyone sort of felt that they know you and so they go 'Mate!' and you go 'Mate!'. It was like walking into a bar in Cheers. You know: 'Norm!' It was as easy as that."

It was also further evidence of his cleverness at handling his public image, without having to put much effort in; it meant people didn't much bother him. There was nothing more to see here. I said: "You are very clever, aren't you?" He said: "Well, it was sneaky." I think he then thought that being sneaky wasn't quite the thing and he said: "No. It wasn't sneaky. It was fortunate. It was lucky."

Luck has something to do with it, but also, "the whole theory was: Ride the waves. Have some fun. But it's going to crash eventually and if you're clever enough to jump off before it crashes ... pat on the back!"

He has always seemed to have the Midas touch (pat on the back!), not simply in terms of dosh, but in terms of his many careers which have seemed effortless and not only profitable, but which have looked more like having fun than working. That he is able to disguise hard work as fun is one of his great talents.

It keeps envy at bay, for one thing. He has retained the common touch. He learned, at uni (he went to Otago where he eventually got his degree, in marketing and management, after five years): "If there was one particular lesson that I think is more important than a degree was, to borrow a quote: 'To walk with kings nor lose the common touch.' To be able to talk to people because you meet people at university from very, very privileged backgrounds and those who aren't and I love them both the same." A lot of successful people say this sort of thing and probably even think they mean it. I think he really does mean it. He is interested in other people. I don't know how interested he is in himself. He says his wife is pretty much a mystery to him and "I still don't get her 100 per cent, which is why I married her".

He says he's a "work in progress - aren't we all?" and that of course he has failed at things. "Oh, I think everyone knows where their weaknesses lie and where their strengths lie." Where do his weaknesses lie? "Oh, deep inside. There are one or two things, that don't keep you up at night but you go: 'That's a rough edge. I'd like to fix that.' I'm far from bloody perfect!"

Of course he's not. He's too bloody clever for that!