Olly Alexander
English singer and actor
Early in my career I got really close to being one of the kids in the Narnia movie. I remember being crushed.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
That I still don’t understand life. When I was young, I thought at some point I would find somebody who does. I am 45, and there is a good chance that I’ll never meet somebody like that.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 October 2021 source ↗
Others on this question
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Adrian Edmondson
English actor, comedian, musician and writer
Not doing Top Of The Pops when The Young Ones’ single went to number one.
The main courses are never as tasty as starters. But enough about my sex life.
Being absent from my son’s life when I’m at work.
More from Noah Harari
View profile →When my dog died a couple of years ago. We were in Greece on vacation and a friend was watching her at home, and she was bitten by a snake. We rushed home, but we were too late by a few hours.
I was almost run over by a bus when I was 13. And in 1991, in the Gulf war, an Iraqi missile hit close to my house.
When I was 16, at the beginning of the summer vacation, I worked in a factory that made industrial valves and I was a much worse industrial valve producer than historian.
I would like to come out at 16 or 17, and not 21.
Now. I’ve learned to adjust my expectations to reality better than when I was 20 or 10.
On a personal level, the friend who is a single mum raising two kids by herself during this Covid era. She is a real hero. If a historical personality, I choose Mikhail Gorbachev, who probably saved the world from world war three.
More on failure & regret
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 203 answers
- What is the worst thing anyone has said to you? 122 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 Clayton, Adam Kay, Adam Lambert, Adeel Akhtar, Adrian Dunbar, Adrian Edmondson
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