Ollie Palmer is too busy for hobbies. Between his career playing as a forward for Wrexham, his clothing brand, and his cameos in major Hollywood productions, he’s got enough on his plate. Even so, he’s not looking for anyone’s pity, even as he acknowledges that his busy schedule comes with certain tradeoffs, including being away from home and missing things like birthdays and Christmases.
“I love what I do, and I’m very fortunate that I have the job that I have,” Palmer said in a recent interview with The Manual’s Dan Gaul.
Palmer was getting ready to head to the U.S. for the start of his next Wrexham season, and a friendly match against Chelsea. “Always great to play these teams and really test yourselves against the best footballers in the world,” he explained, adding that he was excited that Wrexham’s many American and Canadian fans would get a chance to show their support.
Palmer comes from humble beginnings
Part of Palmer’s gratitude stems from the fact that, while he’s wanted to be a football player his whole life, for most of his life, he wasn’t sure he could make it happen. “From a young age, it always seemed like something that was a million miles away, but never impossible to do,” he explained. “It was another world to how I grew up.”
Palmer said that everyone from his family to his friends to his teachers said that dreaming of playing professionally was “silly,” but that he kept working toward his goal anyway.
“It was just a case of working hard, grinding away. Grassroots football,” he said. “Since being at Wrexham, it’s been even more enjoyable, and I’ve loved every minute of it.”
He added that things were not always easy. In addition to a difficult schedule, being away from family and leaving home when he was relatively young were challenging, but he found that repetition and hard work were all he needed to get through those challenging moments. “I think if you can always keep believing in yourself and remain consistent, keep working hard, fortunes will turn for the better,” he said.
In many ways, his unconventional upbringing and the challenges of actually breaking into the sport helped him become the player he is today.
“I think I’ve kind of played the way I grew up,” he explained. “Hard-working, gritty, determined, battling center forward.”
His work doesn’t end when the game is over
While he dedicates plenty of time to making sure he’s ready on the pitch, Palmer’s work also extends to WXM Clothing, a clothing brand he launched in the summer of 2022.
“We’ve built an amazing clothing brand. High quality, affordable prices, looks good, feels great,” Palmer said. “It represents the people of North Wales.”
Palmer said he decided to launch the clothing brand after he found out he had been signed by Wrexham and would be moving away from home. They’ve now had more than 5,000 orders and are selling their streetwear all around the world. “There’s been lots of ups and down, there’s been lots of failures, there’s been lots of successes,” he added.
On top of that, he’s also partnered with American Crew, a haircare brand that he’s also become a dedicated user of. He explained that he’d been approached by other brands, but nothing felt right before American Crew. Palmer now swears by the matte clay, and explained that when he puts it in and goes to bed, his hair looks exactly the same in the morning. “I don’t even have to have a shower,” he said (before adding that he does shower every day).
“I’ve changed so many different hair products over the years, but no matter what happens now with American Crew, they’ll always have a customer in me,” Palmer added.
Palmer is making his film debut in Deadpool & Wolverine
In addition to style and football, Palmer is also dabbling in acting thanks to his connection to Ryan Reynolds (who co-owns Wrexham).
“Ryan is very inclusive; he’s a very inclusive person in how he works,” Palmer explained. “Some people may have tiny little cameos, and some people may have slightly bigger cameos, appearances, acting roles, all across his networking range.”
He added that he hadn’t yet seen the film, but he loved both of the first two, and he knew Reynolds was a gifted storyteller who works incredibly hard: “I actually don’t know when he sleeps.”
He’s looking forward to Deadpool & Wolverine, but not necessarily because of a deep love for comic book movies. “I very much enjoyed Deadpool and Deadpool 2. I actually wasn’t a huge Marvel fan; I’m still not a huge Marvel fan.”
As for his actual cameo, he was mum on the specifics, but said that we shouldn’t expect him to be on screen for that long. “If you blink, you might miss me,” he said.
You can check out our full conversation with Ollie Palmer in the video.
