Signing a movie deal, gaining fame and piling up cash are on the to-do list for those aspiring to global celebrity, an obsession that just continues to balloon.

Juan Mann has been offered these things.

And said no.

“I’m going to go have a quiet cup of tea now,” the 25-year old said.

Offer him a hug, though, and he’ll take it.

Mann garnered international acclaim when his “Free Hugs” video, which has racked up more than 17 million views and counting, hit the web on YouTube in late September of last year.

Now an unlikely celebrity of sorts, Mann still spends his Thursdays giving free hugs to shoppers at the Pitt Street Mall in Sydney, Australia, where he began his one-man cuddle campaign two years before the video’s release.

Dressed in his “most huggable” red velvet jacket, he had to slowly convince the public he wasn’t a homeless man or deviant. Global media attention was key in boosting his credibility among his patrons. Now Mann has regulars, like Helen, who is suffering from cancer. She comes for her hug every week.

“It’s been humbling moreso than anything else,” Mann said. “Before I thought I was making a difference in my hometown. Then you wake up one day and realize something so simple can work on a global level. This is far bigger than me.”

Despite marriage proposals, death threats and an appearance on Oprah last year, Mann has remained modest and grounded.

He has made $72 from the campaign, two dollars of which he says came from a woman who thought he was homeless.

“People stuff money in my pockets. I give it to the homeless guys and they buy me lunch,” Mann says. “Holly comes out every week and she brings me a Diet Coke. That’s the sum total of everything free that I get.”

He has been offered merchandising deals for everything from wristbands to coffee mugs to—roll-on deodorant?

“When you’re hugging people you have to smell good,” Mann jokes. “I said no to everything. Anything you try to sell with the word ‘free’ on it doesn’t work for me.”

He even has a manager, Paul, who doesn’t get paid, either.

“The words ‘free’ don’t tend to involve paychecks. He has this idea that I’ll earn money when I sell a project, but I clued him in that it’s unlikely,” he says. “I admire that he’s still holding on eight months now and still nothing.”

Juan Mann—a pseudonym he admits is meant to evoke “one man”—has worked a series of “dreary” jobs, including the night shift at a local gas station and a member of a demolition crew. But there is always one stipulation to his employment: Thursdays off.

“Anything to get out there on Thursday. It’s a calling in a way,” he says. “Once I gave away free hugs ... I knew there was a job and then there was this.”

Mann’s journey to “Free Hugs” stardom wasn’t paved with golden bricks, as one might expect from a man whose optimism and generosity might be exceeded only by Barney the dinosaur. In fact, before starting the campaign, Mann was a self-described cynic who “had no faith and no hope for the world.”

After his parent’s messy divorce and the breakup of his impending marriage at the hands of his fiancée, Mann isolated himself in the mountains for five months.

“The only physical contact I had was if someone grazed my hand while giving me change or brushed me in the street,” Mann said. “I started buying things in vending machines so I didn’t have to see people. I thought I’d lost the ability to relate with people.”

Mired in depression and self-pity, Mann received a phone call from an old high school friend inviting him to a party. He went and stood in the corner, morose and withdrawn.

“This girl came up to me and threw her arms around me and just walked away. No names, no talking. It was just a moment,” he says, warmly describing the memory that was an inspiration to shed his depression and return the favor.

“It wasn’t meant to be a campaign,” Mann says of his act that has inspired similar movements in 70 different countries. “It was just meant to be an hour and it ended up being the most powerful hour of my life.”

These days, when he’s not hugging the masses, he’s writing a book about his life. The first draft is completed, in time for his third anniversary of free hugs.

“I’m really tempted to just give it all away and get another boring job,” he says, explaining that he might just post it online. “I’m terrified at the thought of having a lot of money. I think it changes things.”

Despite his brush with Internet stardom, Mann has kept his cherished hobby the simple idea it started out as and has no plans to stop the love-fest any time soon.

“I’ll be out there every week wherever I am. I’ll keep going till no one wants a hug. I’ve got till I get wrinkly. I think when I get wrinkly people will say ‘let it go.’”

Watch the original video for the ‘free hugs’ campaign here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.