From singing, to swimming to stage … what Cody Simpson did next

Hit singer. Elite swimmer. Musical theatre performer. Meet Cody Simpson. Whatever he does, he gives 100%. Grounded, focused, all in, he’s diving into his next challenge: Guys & Dolls.

Cody Simpson, who is the lead in Guys and Dolls on set at Sydney’s Opera Australia. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

Cody Simpson is all in.

Whether it’s swimming, singing — he’s just spent a month recording new music in an LA studio — finding time to connect with long-term girlfriend and fellow former swimmer Emma McKeon, or filling the mighty big shoes of Marlon Brando’s iconic character in musical hit Guys & Dolls — he’s in.

“Confidence comes from being prepared,” the singer turned swimmer turned pop star says.

“I’ve pursued enough things in my life that I’ve known the more prepared you are, ultimately the better you feel and more relaxed you feel, because I like to try and do things that make me feel in control of what I’m doing.

“Being as prepared as I can helps me feel in control which I think in turn lowers my anxiety and keeps me feeling more relaxed about the whole thing.

“Or as relaxed as you can because it’s chaotic enough when you get out there, so if you can just be as prepared as you can it certainly helps,” he says of being on stage.

Cody Simpson is preparing to take to the stage in Guys & Dolls, main picture, adding musical theatre to a bulging CV which already boasts elite swimmer, top right, and pop singer, bottom right. Pictures: Sam Ruttyn (using AI assistance)/Getty Images/Supplied

Simpson uses tools to help — from meditation to exercise to eating healthy and getting a good night’s sleep – but sometimes you’ve just got to “do the thing”.

“I found what really helps me is just being prepared — and I learned this in swimming — but there’s no substitute for actually just doing the thing,” he explains.

Jason Arrow as Nicely-Nicely Johnson, Cody Simpson as Sky Masterson and Bobby Fox as Nathan Detroit in Guys & Dolls. Picture: Eugene Hyland

“Thinking about doing the thing or preparing to do the thing, isn’t really doing the thing.

“And doing the real thing is sometimes the hardest thing to do — to just sit there and say your scene over and over until it’s in your subconscious. Do the songs over like a really tedious amount of times … that just helps you really get it in your bones.”

Talking during a lunch break on day two of rehearsals for Guys & Dolls, Simpson says this is the fun part. And as they say, practise makes perfect — so he does, as much as he can. The discipline of swimming put him in good stead for that after all.

“I think it taught me not to be afraid of work and the hours that are required to make something good, or make something that is hard, look easy,” he continues.

Simpson trains at Birmingham ahead of the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Picture: Michael Klein

“A lot of the battle with swimming is that we see someone swimming really well and it looks easy, but it’s that floating duck analogy — under the water your little flippers are going 100 miles an hour, but you just look like you’re floating along the water.”

That analogy applies a lot to Simpson’s life. Growing up in Queensland, the eldest of three kids, he was always a performer.

In 2009 he started uploading songs to YouTube and three years later, in 2012, released his first solo album.

SINGING, SWIMMING, STAGE

By then the family had moved to LA and singing became his life – he even took to the Broadway stage before swimming came calling.

In 2022, he qualified for the Commonwealth Games but retired from the sport last year when he didn’t qualify for the Paris Games.

And so, the stage beckoned again.

“I think having been through so many ups-and-downs in my career, and successes and perceived failures and things, and kind of realising that nothing really changes amid all of that anyway,” he admits.

“I’ve been lucky to have been friends with, and close with, a lot of other young people in entertainment — musicians and pop stars and the like – and sitting and talking to them about what they go through … seeing people that have had the highest of the high success in a certain field, and also deal with issues of depression or not being satisfied, or realising that the ladder never ends.

“You could be climbing and you think there’s another rung all the time and realising that it doesn’t come from that, is important.

“But certainly there is happiness in being able to build a career based on what you love to do, there’s no denying that, but I think after a certain point, you have to be happy with what you have.

Cody Simpson on the awards carpet as a young singer.

Singing became his life when the family moved to LA.

“I’ve talked to people like (Justin) Bieber about that, and old relationships I’ve been in with people that are in a similar position to me, realising that just because someone’s uber successful or whatever, doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve figured out the important things – we’re all trying to figure those things out.

“I’ve been fortunate to be close to and train with a lot of Olympic gold medallists and they have achieved at the heights of their field and they’ll go ‘okay, well if I don’t do it again, it doesn’t count’ – and you’re like ‘What? What do you mean?’ – but it’s just the way it is and if you have that in you, you have to recognise that’s a trait and to work on it.

“Michael Phelps was a mentor for me through my swimming and he’s obviously been through a tonne with his mental health and realising that you have to cultivate some humanity outside of your strive because that’s what I can get caught up in — just trying to strive and succeed and do things all the time and then losing a bit of a sense of ‘me’ outside of what I do.

“Talking to a lot of people in successful fields like that have said: ‘Don’t lose you.’

“It’s exciting and fun to chase – but you can lose yourself.”

When you spend your formative teen years growing up in Hollywood, it would be easy to lose yourself. Simpson counts Kylie Jenner, Gigi Hadid and Miley Cyrus as former girlfriends, after all.

But he’s dated retired Olympic swimmer Emma McKeon since 2022, and quashing rumours to the contrary, says the pair make it work, despite being pulled in different directions. So will McKeon be cheering him on opening night of Guys & Dolls? She wouldn’t be anywhere else.

“She’s already down here with me,” he says.

Cody Simpson and Emma McKeon attend t the Marie Claire Women Of The Year Awards 2024. Picture: Getty Images

“Her family is from Wollongong so she’s close to them and Sydney is not that far away.

“It was amazing to see what she did over there,” he says of McKeon’s recent time in Bangladesh in her role as UNICEF Australia ambassador, helping prevent childhood drownings in the country that counts them as the biggest killer of young people.

“She’s got the biggest heart,” Simpson says.

“She wanted to do that kind of humanitarian work for a very long time but (swimming) didn’t necessarily allow those kinds of trips in the field and things, so she’s excited to do more of that because she certainly has the heart for it.

“I’m proud of her for using a platform for something so special like that.

“It’s week by week to be honest,” he says of their balance.

“Both of our schedules are constantly changing and do change all the time and we may be needed in different places at different times, and so it’s just the constant juggling act but we make it work, day by day.”

Simpson has always wanted to be a performer, despite his time in the pool.

Fans will be happy to hear he’s just spent a month in LA recording new music in the studio – and again, he’s all in.

“That’s what I grew up doing, really, and it’s certainly what I had planned to continue doing after swimming,” he says of making music.

Emma McKeon and Cody Simpson holidaying in Venezia, Italy Picture Instagram

“Swimming was – in the grand scheme of things – a small chapter of my life.

“A small facet of what I do and who I am.

“It’s certainly been an amazing one but right before I started swimming, I was in a Broadway show and I was excited to do it again as soon as I finished, and I certainly lived, breathed and ate swimming for those four years very intensively and didn’t really do much else for that time and my thoughts were very singular. But it’s been really nice to like come back to all this with a really new perspective and almost like a fresh, childlike eagerness for it again.

“I’m not stale on it, it’s all very new and exciting again for me because I’ve had some time away from it and I can come back feeling like a kid, which is really nice.

“I just spent a month in LA back in the recording studio, recording a bunch of new music, even then I felt like a kid again doing that. It almost felt like it was my first trip to LA back when I was 14 when I got signed – it almost felt like that again. It’s been a really renewed full circle thing for me.”

Back to Guys & Dolls, he’s already seeing glimpses of the spectacular set to make a splash on Sydney Harbour when it opens later this month, making him even more excited to get going.

“All is well – it’s gonna be hard and fast but we’re ready – everyone’s prepped and ready to get it up, get it together,” he says.

“It’s suddenly where it starts to feel real, that’s for sure.

“But it’s also the exciting part.

“You can sit around and wait forever and sing your songs through and learn your lines and all that – but eventually you’ve gotta get it on stage and put it together and have everyone come together and bring all the puzzle pieces in to form one large beautiful puzzle.

“And we’re in the beginning process of doing that now – and already saying the calibre of the talent involved in the show is really special.

“I feel very honoured to be in it so I’ll do my best to hold up my end of the bargain.”

Cody Simpson performs to screaming fans at Eastland Shopping Centre, Ringwood in 2011. He’s just back from LA where he has been working on new music.

After that, it will be back to the studio in LA to continue working on what he calls a “really great project”, even if it’s early stages.

“But my mind and focus right now is Guys & Dolls, so it was the switch flip when we started rehearsals yesterday, live and breathe this until we close it and then I can continue focusing on other things, but I’m very excited about it all,” he says. “My happy place is when I’m working on what I like to do, my skills, and putting them to use and exercising them – I feel really at home doing that – whether that is writing and recording music or learning songs and choreography like I have been today, just anything that occupies me in a way in which I can use my skills and what I feel as though I’m good at. That’s when I feel at home.

“I enjoy downtime, but what makes me feel alive most is putting myself to work.”

So, was he always like that?

“Unfortunately,” he laughs of growing up the kid always running from one thing to the next – all in, from day one.

“From training in the morning, then I’d be in the music room with my little band at lunchtime, writing songs, and swim training again in the afternoon after school.

“But it was just intrinsic.

“That’s what I loved.

“I was tireless, and kind of still am.”

Things hurt a little bit more now, he laughs, but he still feels incredibly connected to “that little kid” he once was.

“That’s a really hard question I’ve been battling with a lot lately,” he admits, when asked where home is.

Downtime for Simpson. Picture: Instagram

“I feel very connected to multiple places around the world, just because we moved a lot when I was young.

“I don’t really have a childhood home in the way some people do. We rented a lot and my dad was working – we were on the Gold Coast primarily but we would move house a lot, so I kind of subconsciously learnt young to never get attached to one house or bedroom, because we moved every year or two.

“And then we moved to Los Angeles and we moved every year when we were over there too, and I’ve just been moving ever since I can remember.

“So I’ve had to find home in things other than places.

“The Gold Coast certainly is my childhood, where my roots lie – but LA feels like home to me as well because a lot of my closest friends are there and it’s where I spent the years from 13 to 24 – those are the years, right? – and they were all in Los Angeles, so that feels like home to me in a very different way.

“And I’m in a place now where I feel fortunate that I will be able to go back-and-forth between the places … but it’s tricky.

“I don’t necessarily feel like anywhere is home – I have a few homes, but it helps for what I do because I don’t stay long anyway and am always gonna be travelling.”

It’s his family that kept him grounded over the years that he needed it – and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“And then a few key friends that I’ve made that I’ve known for a long time and then a few that I honestly met through swimming because they saw a different side of me and we bonded through that,” he says.

“But certainly my family – I mean they were there all through years where I was getting too big for my boots, and my parents would be the first ones to say, ‘We’ll go home tomorrow if you keep acting like this’ when we were on tour and stuff – like how are we gonna cancel the tour? What do you mean? I’m not going home tomorrow,” he laughs.

“But they were always there to check on me, and check me.”

Now he’s very conscious to take it all in.

“I do (appreciate it all),” he says of all the highs he’s experienced in his 28 years.

“And I’ve really worked on that over the years – just being present and holding gratitude for all of it.

“There was a period I was letting things slip by me and taking things for granted – and I regret those years and certainly for a fair while now, I’ve tried to remain very present and excited about it all, and really not be blind to the unique nature of what I’m doing.”

Guys & Dolls will run from March 21 to April 20 at Handa Opera, Sydney Harbour