Tom Daley says a Dustin Lance Black-written biopic of his life would be ‘amazing’
Excl: "He said after that horrible 2016 Olympics: 'You like to make your story dramatic, don't you?'" said Tom at the Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards, powered by Jaguar
Words: Jamie Tabberer; Image: Kit Oates (left) and Instagram
He won an Oscar for his screenplay for Milk… but there are no plans for Dustin Lance Black to give husband Tom Daley’s life the biopic treatment – yet.
Speaking at this week’s Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards, sponsored by Jaguar, Tom said the idea was “amazing,” adding: “Maybe one day that’ll happen – but not any time soon!”
The Olympian won the Attitude Sport Award, supported by Jaguar at Wednesday’s ceremony at London’s Roundhouse; Dustin took home the 2008 Best Original Screenplay Oscar for his film about the late US LGBTQ activist and politician Harvey Milk.
Asked whether the pair have discussed the idea of a film, Tom said: “”Oh my gosh. I mean, that would be amazing, but no. He always said to me after 2016 when I had that horrible Olympic Games: ‘You like to make your story dramatic, don’t you?'”
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The star shared that his son Robbie was “in London with my mum at the moment, she’s watching him tonight,” while Dustin was “still in Canada. He’ll be out there until December. He’s working on a TV show for FX called Under the Banner of Heaven.”
“He hasn’t actually read the book yet!”
On his upcoming book Coming Up for Air: What I Learned from Sport, Fame and Fatherhood, the 27-year-old said: “There are lots of different subjects around my life. Each chapter is named ‘resilience’ or ‘motivation’, all different things. Each tells a story about something’s that’s happened in my life that taught me that lesson.
“I talk about all kinds of things: what led me to come out, the difficulty of – not battling your sexuality, but figuring it out in the public eye, that was a challenging thing. Normally it’s done behind closed doors and you have time to figure yourself out. I had to do it in a very public way.”
On whether his husband gave him any writing tips, Tom said: “He did not. He hasn’t actually read it yet! I’m excited for him to read it. I think he’s gonna like it.”
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