Dan Carter's Phantom dress-up

Pin-up Dan Carter has a closet full of dress-ups - masks and wigs and super-hero costumes. Photo / Richard Robinson

Goodness, blokes are rude about Dan Carter. I'm not going to relate the rude things they said when they found out I was going to see him.

They're just jealous because he might be a bit good-looking, and famous too. I can't remember what reason I gave for wanting to speak to him. I hope I didn't say, "Can I have an interview with Dan Carter because he's so good-looking and famous and is, whoa! on those underwear billboards?" But it's possible. I'd justify it by saying it served to annoy the blokes.

Anyway, the media manager said yes, of course, and that the next time he had some time in Auckland, they'd organise an interview. Nobody, including me, could quite believe this. He's not just an All Black, but the most famous one, and All Blacks are hard to get interviews with.

I put this to the media manager afterwards, but he's not silly. He said All Blacks weren't hard to get interviews with, as had just been demonstrated. I couldn't, obviously, argue with that. But I think I know why I got an interview with him so easily: He's their best asset. And nobody (except for those envious blokes) could fail to fall head over heels for him from the minute you meet him.

He arrived, showered and squeaky clean, fresh as a daisy, from signing autographs for hoards of over-excited kid fans and a few even more excited lady fans. There was a picture in the paper the day after I saw him, smiling calmly in the face of such adoration.

He apologised for being late and would I mind if he took another five minutes while he grabbed something to eat? In almost anyone else I would have been a bit miffed, but he was so polite and sweet and, just possibly, a bit good-looking that I couldn't mind at all. He shook my hand and it was as soft as a baby's, which wasn't very rugby.

I thought, well, he is one of those metrosexuals, another reason the blokes are scathing, so he's probably got some fancy man lotion on his mitts. Right at the end, we shook hands again, so I had to ask. He looked a bit startled and said he hadn't put anything on his hands, but that they might be a bit sweaty. "You're probably making me nervous."

I don't believe that for a moment, but who would mind a bit of Dan sweat?

Do I sound as though I'd gone a bit ga-ga for him? A rhetorical question, obviously.

Before he went off to get something to eat, he said to the media man, in a voice so tentative it was almost a whisper: "Should I get her a coffee?"

It was endearingly awkward, almost gauche, so unpolished that of course I fell for him straight away, and so would anyone.

He talked about being about to go on tour, to Tokyo. You'd think he might by now be a bit blase about such things, but no, he's terribly excited. "I can't wait!"

He talked about coming from a little town, Southbridge, of about 1000 people and, when he was growing up, one All Black: Albert Anderson. "Oh, we all felt part of the All Black environment because of him and every little kid in town wanted to be an All Black, to perform the haka. And it wasn't until I actually made the team that I realised that an extremely small amount of people are lucky enough to get that opportunity. I'm sure millions of people dream of doing what I'm doing and I'll never take it for granted, not something that special."

All of which is exactly what you'd expect him to say. But while he was saying it, he looked just as I imagine he did when he was the little boy idolising Albert Anderson. Which, in turn, is just the way kids now look at him.

He was very nice about doing an interview with somebody who knew nothing about rugby.

"Oh, no. It's great. I love talking to people like you. It's quite refreshing not to talk about rugby for an hour. We just tend to say the same thing to all the [sports] reporters."

He says he's not a big reader of newspapers so I showed him a picture of an All Black from the front page of the Herald: The caption read: Henry's Lineout Solution: Stand on a table.

Did he think that was funny? "Is that right? Yeah, I mean, obviously some of the stuff you just have to have a laugh at." Which means he thought it was a bit funny, but only a bit.

I read him a snippet from sports columnist, Chris Rattue's Wednesday column, about the All Black coaches: "New-age, gobbledygook gurus." He gave the expected answer about respecting people's opinions. Then said, of our Mr Rattue, "I don't even know who he is." That might have been a bit miaowy, but I suspect it's more that he really doesn't read newspapers.

I tried to get him to say that Graham Henry is terrifying, but he just laughed at me and said what a top bloke he is, when you get to know him. I did get him to admit that he was capable of being scary. "He can be, yes. If you're not performing."

Does he mean he's had a ticking off? "Um. I'm trying to think. He's been pretty good to me."

You imagine the coach would be pretty good to the best rugby player in the world because, he is, isn't he? That was a mean question. He squirmed and said, "no, not at all." He might be the best first five-eight player in the world and I know this because I read it, on his website. "Really? Ha, ha. You've done your research. Oh, I don't think so. There might have been stages in my career when I'd been top of my game, but here and now, I don't think so."

He has always said that he's just a shy boy from the country, but he can't be all that "aw shucks".

He's managing his rugby career and his other A-list, celebrity endorser career with what looks like considerable acumen. He's been described as the "first true professional rugby player". He said, "I'm humbled to hear something like that." That seemed an odd response. Why humbled? "Because it sounds like I'm doing something right. Ha, ha."

Now that might a bit too, "who me? I'm just a shy boy from the country" to be true, but he was so obviously chuffed you couldn't help but think he really did mean it.

He could come across as a right goody-goody. He has to be nice, and polite and well-behaved all the time. "The majority of the time. But you still have to get the balance right. You still have to be a person."

He says he does get drunk. I said I didn't believe it. "Believe it or not! Obviously you have to be smarter when you do things like that, but the last thing I want to do is be hidden away from anything. I don't want to be this person who's too scared to go out because you don't want to talk to anyone."

It's his own fault that I was sceptical about the getting drunk (I was putting it on a bit; he is a rugby player.) I had asked if he was a good boy at school, and he said, "yeah, I was teacher's pet!" Oh, he would be. He realised that did make him sound horribly good. "Not always!"

Oh, he was so. "No! I was all about lunchtime and PE."

You would think, if you didn't know anything else about him, that the sort of person who would appear in their underwear on enormous billboards must be an extrovert, at the very least. Steve Hansen, one of the All Black coaches, once said that if he was any more relaxed he'd be asleep. "I don't know what to say to that! I love sleeping. I can sleep any time. During the day, I sleep on planes, I sleep anywhere. Yeah, it's good to be relaxed."

So, no, he's not particularly extroverted, or even outgoing, even when he's awake. He is not as shy as he used to be, but you can see that being a public figure doesn't come naturally.

It is, I say, very strange to be sitting talking to that public figure, the body on the billboards. "Oh, I can only imagine. I'm sorry about that. I fully apologise. I do know. It was very scary for me too."

I asked if he was a brand. He said, "yeah, people keep saying that. I guess you set yourself up to be attractive to businesses outside of rugby, so effectively you are building a brand. But I still think I'm a person!"

He stressed this a few times, as if to reassure both of us. He knows what it's like to see heroes as not quite real. He knows why kids want his autograph. "It's that actual feeling of being close to somebody and it's great for us because it shows that we're just like any other person. We're not this sort of made up fantasy. We're real people."

But being regarded as a sort of made-up fantasy must be odd. It might go some way towards explaining this: That he has a closet full of dress-ups -masks and wigs and Super Hero costumes. If you're a super hero figure to kids and a sex symbol to women, you might just want to create your own fantasy life.

Don't ask him to explain it. "I'm not too sure. I blame my parents. We always had a dress-up box at home."

Now he plays grown up dress-ups mostly with his male mates who come over, drink beer, and "talk shit, really".

He didn't want to tell me what his favourite costume was but I bullied him into it by suggesting it might be a fairy costume. "Definitely not! My first ever was the Phantom and Ali Williams was Spider-Man. The Flash is a pretty good get-up!"

I thought he'd be sweet and polite and not too bad-looking. I thought he might - one of the less rude things those blokes say about him - a bit bland. But you couldn't accuse a bloke who dresses up as the Phantom of being that, now, could you?