Poster boy of British sport, four-time world champion and Olympic gold medalist; Tom Daley is prepped to return to the diving board for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Having made his Olympic debut at just fourteen years old, Daley now holds the title of Britain’s most decorated diver, and the first to ever compete in five Olympics. Following the surprise announcement of his return from early retirement, he’s set on retaining his gold. In the run-up to the Games, Daley pauses for a moment of clarity with close friend, actor Hunter Doohan, who is currently filming the second season of Tim Burton’s Wednesday.

Hunter Doohan: Hey, Tom!
Tom Daley: Hey, where are you at the moment, Hunter?

HD: I’m in Dublin, we switched filming locations.
TD: How long have you been there now?

HD: Two months and I’m here until November. My cat and Fielder [Jewett, Hunter’s husband] are here with me.
TD: Oh, that’s nice, how long are they staying for?

HD: Biddy [his cat] will be here the whole time but Fielder has to go back [and forth].
TD: It’s nice that he’s able to [be there], I imagine it’s quite isolating and lonely on your own. It’ll be eight or nine months until you’re home, right?

HD: Something like that.
TD: The longest I’ve ever done has been three or four weeks, and that felt like an eternity.

HD: Are Lance [Black, Tom’s husband] and the boys coming with you?
TD: Lance has to go to New York because he’s working on a musical, and then I’m going to meet him in Paris and he’s going to take the kids while I go into the [Olympic] Village and do the Olympic thing. It’s wild how quickly that has come around.

HD: Crazy. Are you ready?
TD: I guess so. I feel like you’re never actually ready. This time last year you and me were in Paris for fashion week and I had literally just started thinking about coming back and wasn’t in full training mode. It was very much, “I’ll see how it goes, maybe I’ll come back, maybe I’ll qualify,” and flash forward a year and it’s a month to go, which is crazy.

HD: I know, I was thinking about how last June we were in Paris drinking and having a good time and I was like, “Oh, Tom can’t do that right now.” [laughs]
TD: Nope, none of that. None of the fun and exciting stuff for me anymore. It’s different when you’re training for the Olympics, it’s easier to be more sensible because you know you have to be at training tomorrow and you have to be able to be your best every single day. But having two years off after Tokyo was so nice, to be able to be a normal person and do what I wanted to do.

HD: Are you ready for it to be over again? Or are you enjoying it?
TD: I kind of am but at the same time I’m kind of not. I’ve really enjoyed the training process but at the end of every season I’m like, “OK I’m ready to have a break now.” But I don’t know what this break is going to entail. I’m old now in diving years, I’ve gone from being the youngest back in 2008 to now being the oldest in the team. It’s just very different, this year has been a bonus to be able to compete, but it does feel different because my body feels older every time I wake up.

“There was this video about what it meant to be an Olympian and by the end of it I was crying.”

HD: You’re feeling those flips now. [both laugh]
TD: We put our bodies through such an ordeal every time we step out, it’s the same for any sportsperson. I dread to think how my body will feel in ten or twenty years because I’ve ruined it from constant impact into the water. But it is what it is. [laughs] I’m probably going to do lots of yoga in the future.

HD: Well, you’ll probably say you’re retiring again and just come back.
TD: I said that to my coach in LA, I was like “I’m going to have a little break and then maybe I’ll be back for LA in 2028. In theory, it’ll be a home Olympics because this is where I live now.” It’s always tempting because when you stop something you always feel like you’re missing out and want to be involved.

HD: Was it the FOMO of it all that brought you back?
TD: It was a little bit of FOMO, it was a little bit of watching the diving competitions and thinking, “I could score that, I could do that!”

HD: That is so shady. [both laugh]
TD: Phoenix [Tom’s son] was born in Colorado Springs, which is where the Olympic Museum and Paralympic Training Centre is, I went there before he was born and they walked me through the museum. There was this video about what it meant to be an Olympian and by the end of it I was crying. Robbie [Tom’s son] looked at me and was like, “Papa, I want to see you dive in the Olympics.” That was that. I made a phone call to see if I could come back and it was a long shot but we got there.

HD: That’s going to be so special because now Robbie is old enough to remember this for the rest of his life.
TD: I hope so. He’s so incredibly competitive – I feel like he has the highest expectations of me out of anyone. [both laugh] He was like, “You know you have to win, right?” He always predicts what place I’m going to come, before I go away he’ll tell me, “You’re going to win a bronze medal, a silver medal…” Then the time he said gold I was like, “Robbie, I don’t think Papa is in a position to get a gold medal just yet.” But then we ended up getting one in Germany [at the World Championships in Berlin], so he’s like the fortune teller. But I don’t want to know anything before the Olympics I already told him that, I was like “Robbie, don’t say anything! You’ll be in my head.” [laughs]

HD: You don’t want to be walking out the door and he’s like, “Bronze…” [both laugh]
TD: In his journal, he drew some pictures of the Olympic rings and it says, “I’m going to the Olympics and it’s going to be fun, I’m excited to see the Eiffel Tower and when I grow up I want to be a firefighter because I love swimming.” [both laugh] There was a really sweet entry about how each of the medals has a piece of the Eiffel Tower in them. When they were doing the Tower’s reconstruction they replaced some of the original metal, so they’ve used some of it as part of the medal. He is extremely excited about that, he was like, “You have to get a medal because I want a piece of the Eiffel Tower.” I was like, “I will try my best.”

HD: He was enough of a force to bring you back out of retirement so maybe you have to bring him home a piece of the Eiffel Tower.
TD: How’s it going out in Dublin? Are you having any time [away from shooting]?

HD: We have so much time because we only do eight episodes over seven months so I’ve been able to travel a bunch. We’re lucky that Netflix is giving us the time to do it, especially on the episodes that Tim Burton directs, he gets a lot of time because he has such a distinct style and way of working.
TD: What’s it like being directed by him?

HD: It’s amazing. I thought I would come back [for the new season] used to it but I’m still excited on set, ready to go. Especially for me this year, I get to play the full villain, so I feel like I’m in the Tim Burton world from the beginning.
TD: That must be fun because for the first season nobody knew you were the villain.

HD: I was just the sweet coffee boy.
TD: You were the drama.

HD: Am I the drama? [both laugh]
TD: Have you always imagined yourself as a villain?

HD: No. [laughs]
TD: You’re not very villainous.

HD: I always get cast as some version of that, some troubled straight teenager who looks like they could never kill someone but then they are always responsible.
TD: You’re like the person at the dinner party who is the murderer in the murder mystery.

HD: Exactly.
TD: As a gay guy, playing a straight role is kind of fun.

HD: It happens a lot the other way, so it’s fun to do it this way.
TD: That’s true, flip the table on it.

“We put our bodies through such an ordeal every time we step out…”

HD: That’s my little revenge.
TD: Have you been to the Guinness factory yet?

HD: Of course, you can print your selfie on top of the beer.
TD: I really dislike beer. When it’s hot outside some people are like, “I just want an ice cold beer” but that’s not for me, I crave a frozen drink. I don’t know why I’m talking about alcohol before the Olympics, I think it’s the light at the end of the tunnel – when you finish training and can be a little more normal and free. At the moment what I’m eating is very regimented, when I’m eating, my hydration, making sure I’ve got my electrolytes. It’s very different.

HD: Do you have it down now, though – is it like jumping back into your old routine? What is it like training to be an Olympian?
TD: I have a nutritionist but she doesn’t prescribe the meals for me, I keep a food diary on the notes app on my phone and it shares with her automatically, which is good because it holds me accountable to make sure I’m eating the right things. It is more difficult with two kids, trying to cook things that they will eat but are also healthy for me, so I find myself cooking certain things and then adding loads of veg on the side or adjusting what I eat compared to what they do.

HD: How often do you lie in your food log to your nutritionist? [laughs]
TD: I commit to never lying on my food diary because then I don’t get the praise when I cut stuff out. [both laugh] I always try to be like, “I had a handful of popcorn” or, “I ate a chocolate bar.” I will always say because then when I get to competition and I start cutting, if I never had them in there in the first place and then I start losing weight suddenly, my nutritionist will be like, “What are you doing? You need to eat more, how is this happening?”

HD: That could be your next book, your food log.
TD: In the build-up to the Olympics, people would be surprised by the amount I eat because I exercise a lot and you have to fuel for that. If you don’t, you’ll just end up tired, injured and sick. There is a balance.

HD: What is the ratio of actual diving to other training?
TD: The majority is dry land. An average training session would be an hour in a gymnastics gym, diving-specific conditioning, stretching, trampolining and somersaults. Then it’s an hour to an hour-and-a-half in the pool, and after that another hour doing weights, strength and conditioning. We have massage and physio appointments, then I do mobility and stretching sessions.

HD: Is Noah [Williams, Daley’s synchronised diving partner] in LA training with you?
TD: No, he came to LA at the beginning of June for two weeks and I go back to start training with him until competition. I’m looking forward to having my family [at the Olympics] because the last time there was nobody because of Covid. You shot during Covid, didn’t you?

HD: We shot Wednesday in Romania and there were a lot of protocols. We were getting tested every day, the whole city had a 9pm curfew for five of the seven months we were there because Covid numbers were rising so much.
TD: What would happen on set if somebody tested positive?

HD: We tested every morning, if you were on set or not, and as soon as the results came back for that day, if someone [tested positive] and was on set they had to get them out immediately and send them home to quarantine. I think most of us got Covid at some point during season one. Fielder was visiting me and we were walking to dinner, the phone rang and I was like, “Oh no, it’s the set doctor, it’s not going to be good news.”
TD: That was the scary thing about the Olympics as well, we had to test every single morning. Quite a lot of people missed out on competing because when they got there they tested positive and then had to go home. It’s wild.

HD: Do you have to stay in the Village if you’re competing? Or is it just something they offer?
TD: The only team I know that never stays in the Village is the US basketball team, they always stay somewhere else.

HD: They get a fancy hotel room or something?
TD: [The Village] isn’t luxury, put it that way. For example, for the LA 2028 games, they’re using the UCLA campus, so the student halls are basically the Olympic Village. They often build new apartment complexes but sometimes it’s before they put in the kitchen and all the bathrooms. For example, when I was in Tokyo six male divers were staying in one apartment that had this little living room that fit a two-seater sofa and two plastic chairs. Basically, there weren’t enough seats for people, and there was only one bathroom between six of us as well.

HD: Oh my god.
TD: It was fine, it’s all good. I think that’s why the US basketball team are like, “We’re going to stay in a nice hotel…” What’s interesting about the Olympics is when you go into the dining hall – it’s the size of four American football pitches and it has 24-hour food, every kind of food you can imagine – there are all shapes and sizes of human beings. You’ve got the gymnasts, the basketball players, the shot putters, the weight lifters, and everybody looks so different. It’s the only place in the world where you get 10,000 people together in one place from over 200 countries all there for the same thing, excited and supporting one another. It’s a very politics- free area as well, everyone is always very happy to see each other.

HD: That sounds like such a singular experience – or I guess five times over for you. Is this like a record, has anyone competed in more Olympic games than you?
TD: People have definitely competed in more, but I know I’m the only British diver to have gone to five Olympic Games.

HD: I love how you have all your crochet stuff behind you.
TD: This is like my office and it’s a complete mess at the moment. I want to go through it properly. [points at a poster] This is from the first ever Gay Olympic Games, games for LGBTQ+ and allies.

HD: Do Olympians also do that?
TD: Yeah it can be Olympians, also it can be people who didn’t quite make the Olympics. Behind it is the David Hockney poster from the 1972 Munich Olympic Games showing a diver going into the water.

HD: I’ve been thinking of you here. I have a lot of downtime and just picked up embroidery.
TD: Oh, have you?

HD: It’s not the same thing but…
TD: It’s still fun. What are you working on at the moment?

HD: I went to go see Troye Sivan here last night so I did a little Rush bottle on my jeans. [laughs]
TD: Oh fun! On your actual jeans? I love that!

HD: We tore up a bunch of old t-shirts and practised on them first.
TD: How long did that take you?

HD: A few hours.
TD: There’s a lot of work that goes into something small, but it’s the process as well. It’s the same with knitting, a lot of my friends are like, “Why did you spend so much time doing that?” And I’m like, “I enjoy the whole process, the hours I’ve spent making it.”

HD: That’s one of your many side quests.
TD: [both laugh] One of my random side quests.

HD: You’re an author. You have a podcast…
TD: After the Olympics I’m doing the Olympic hosting and commentary for Eurosport, which will be fun.

HD: Are you doing it for the rest of the Games after you’ve competed?
TD: Yeah, I finish competing and then basically the next day I begin working, which should be fun.

HD: Come on, host. [both laugh]

Interview originally published in The HERO Summer Zine 8 – out now.

grooming by MICHELLE HARVEY at OPUS BEAUTY using TOM FORD and KEVIN MURPHY