Gemma Whelan
English actress
To my husband for all the huffing and puffing.
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Death & what remains
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
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.
I wish I’d told my mother that, in all the years I knew her, she was never once boring. We weren’t demonstrative, so that would have meant that I loved her.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 October 2020 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 209 →I think that’s a thesis.
My younger self for being hard on myself.
Samira Ahmed
British journalist and writer
My maternal grandmother, who lived with us for many years. I was a moody teenager and sometimes impatient and rude. Yet she was the person I feel I’m most like. I really miss her.
More from Viv Albertine
View profile →Romantic love – what a con. (I do still believe in it.)
In my first job in film, a giant bloke dressed like a sumo wrestler asked me to get his G-string out of his arse. He said he couldn’t reach it.
The moment my daughter was born in 1999, because it took me seven years to conceive.
I am going straight to cremation like David Bowie, so there would be no funeral.
I had no female role models growing up. I lived an incredibly sheltered life: there was no TV at home and we had no visitors. It wasn’t until rock and pop came into my life that I concocted myself as a role model.
It’s like digging a field together: it’s hard work, not very glamorous, but you can stand back and think, “We did that.”
More on failure & regret
- What has been your biggest disappointment? 219 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
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Anne Enright, Bernadine Evaristo, David Baddiel, Greg James, Ian Rankin, Jacqueline Wilson
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