Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
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The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 April 2026 source ↗
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.
My first wife, because I left her.
My ex-wife Caroline, because she found my style of life rather irritating.
My younger self for not believing in her.
Crashing in an aeroplane into an ocean at night.
In my 20s I was in a show called The Unauthorised Autobiography of Samantha Brown. The actor who played my dad messed up his lines and it made me laugh so hard that I ended up peeing my pants.
An inability to be authentic.
Curious, thoughtful and kind.
I had a casting director once stop me in the middle of an audition and tell me to go wash my face in the bathroom because she felt my makeup was too distracting, but I wasn’t wearing any. It was mortifying. It felt like a power play and I was so young, I didn’t know what to do.
My tendency to be avoidant.
Stanley Tucci, Marcus Brigstocke, Justin Hawkins, Gabby Logan, Guz Khan, Anita Rani
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