Sonny Bill Williams

Being a young Kiwi lad, a young Polynesian boy, I was pretty close to my family. But when I moved to Sydney, I went from training twice a week, playing touch footy with my mates, to working full-time as a labourer and training professionally.

I do read a lot, and I think in recent years the ratio between the amount of non-fiction and fiction has tipped quite considerably. I did read fiction as a teenager as well, mostly because I was forced to read fiction, of course, to go through high school.

You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?