It started at age nine watching the likes of Adam and Selina, Cosentino and Michael Boyd on Australia’s Got Talent and now he is on the same stage.
On Sunday night, the Marangaroo 19-year-old secured his place in this year’s Australia’s Got Talent semi-final.
“It was definitely a big shock,” he said.
Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE
Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.
READ NOW“We didn’t think we were going to even make it through.
“To be in the semi-finals is a dream come true, especially from watching it when we were little and talking about it.
“My assistants are my childhood friends that I grew up with through the circus.
“It’s something we always talked about when we were little; ‘one day we’ll be on TV and you get to do this and you get to do that’.
“We had notebooks we used to draw our ideas in for when we eventually get on TV.
“We’ve actually just started pulling them back out and going back through them so it’s definitely a dream come true.”
Daley first taught himself magic tricks through books from his school library.
When he was 11 he approached Circus Joseph Ashton when it was set up in Girrawheen and asked if he could get some work experience.
“That’s when I started to get a love for performing on a bigger scale,” he said.
“I bought my first grand illusion when I was 13 and that’s when I started doing gigs professionally.”
Daley worked his way up from working in the canteen and taking care of the animals to sawing girls in half and making them disappear.
“My whole way through high school, I would be straight on the bus home from school on a Friday then mum would drop me off at the circus and I would work there Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” he said.
“By day I was a normal school kid and by night I was a circus performer.”
Daley now tours the country with Circus Royale, currently set up in country Victoria, which he is juggling with his time on Australia’s Got Talent.
“All our rehearsals are over Skype and over the phone and sending videos back and forth,” he said.
“It’s definitely hard but definitely worth it, especially when we first stood on the stage and had our rehearsal and we looked out to where the judges were going to be and looked above our heads at the Xs behind us and the big Australia’s Got Talent banner.”