Charles Dance
British actor
“You can’t play Maxim de Winter with ginger hair.”
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
My dad said, “You’re going nowhere.” I was seven or eight.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 August 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 122 →“Do you know what your problem is?” It was a dear friend of mine. They were referring to the fact that I’m impatient.
A lady came up to me in Tesco last year and said, “Excuse me, but didn’t you used to be Roger McGough?”
We’ve run out of champagne.
More from Kevin Rowland
View profile →I worked in the stores of Edgware hospital when I was about 17, and it was grey and depressing.
My brother Pete passing on in 2005.
On stage – the Old Vic in 1981 and Glastonbury last year.
Shakespeare said, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” – I think that’s true.
Insanity. I am on a recovery programme – clean from drugs and drink for many years – and if I stopped doing all that stuff I’d go crazy pretty quick and pick up drugs again, because I was a real fucking addict.
The contentment I have now.
More on failure & regret
- What has been your biggest disappointment? 219 answers
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 203 answers
- Which moment embarrassed you most? 122 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 61 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 36 answers
Also answered this · A–Z
Adam Lambert, Belinda Carlisle, Bruce Dickinson, Bryn Terfel, Chaka Khan, David Hasselhoff
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All failure & regret questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject