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.
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
What happens when we die?
Death & what remains
Question
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Daily life
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.
In an audition at the Royal Court, this man called out, “Were you trained?”
The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 March 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 122 →“I would love to go on a date with you, but I’d be too embarrassed.”
“You pinko!” by a Tory minister signing off at the end of an interview with me during the EU referendum campaign.
When I was first acting, in college, a relative came and saw me in Hedda Gabler and she said: “Look in the mirror, you’re not an actor. An actor looks like Mel Gibson.”
More from Charles Collingwood
View profile →Watching the Festival of Remembrance last autumn.
My childhood. I was an only child, happy and secure, and there was always plenty of time to play cricket.
Not listening to me.
Glass half full.
When my mother died in my arms, I feel I witnessed her spirit leaving her body, so let’s just wait and see.
If you’d asked me last year, I would have said a knee replacement.
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- 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? 69 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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Chris McCausland, Mark Radcliffe, Lemn Sissay, Imogen Poots, Rebecca Lucy Taylor, Rosalind Eleazar
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