Prior to his discovery, his family were going through some financial difficulty. His father had enough money to pay for one of them to go to a private school for a term. "He chose me despite the fact that my sister had a better academic record. And by the end of the first term, I was earning enough to pay for the school fees that we couldn't afford. I was very lucky. I got an opportunity and I made the most of it." With the money he earned through his acting, they were able to pay off the school fees and eventually started their own family business, a chain of second-hand bookstores around Melbourne.