A willingness to go with my gut feeling, rather than wait a day and contemplate other options.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, February 2013 source ↗
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
How would you like to die?
Death & what remains
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's The Q&A has retained this Proust-derived prompt from at least 2007 through 2026, and ABC independently put it to the Obamas in 2011.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
My distractibility, diminishing memory, and capacity for sustained concentration. My English master once said I had the brain of a butterfly. I feel that 40 years later, I’ve evolved into Dory from Finding Nemo.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, April 2020 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 242 →I still say yes to too many things.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 March 2026 source ↗
Maxi-multitasking.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 April 2024 source ↗
Sally Field
Actor
Overall I’d have to say my earnestness.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, March 2016 source ↗
More from Helena Bonham Carter
View profile →In my bed, a hot-water bottle on my tummy, the windows are open, reading a book that I’m already into, chocolate at hand, all with the knowledge that everyone I love and know is happy.
Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 28 April 2020 source ↗
My mother. She’s 85 and rather than diminishing with age, she keeps surprising and growing more marvelous. She finds fun when most are jaded, wonder when most are cynical, and is curious when most are bored. She gave me life and continues to show me how to live it daily. And I know that everyone who meets her thinks the same.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, April 2020 source ↗
At the right time, and like my father—utterly without fear or pain, at home, with all whom I love. It was his last lesson as a parent to me.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 28 April 2020 source ↗
The loss of anything, be it a loved one or a faculty—my sight, hearing, or mind.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, April 2020 source ↗
Both of the days my children were born. It was like I’d stepped through a mirror and everything turned Technicolor.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, April 2020 source ↗
More on identity & self
Also answered this · A–Z
Adam Kay, Adam Lambert, Adele Parks, Adrian Dunbar, Al Franken, Alex Hassell
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All identity & self questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject