The question

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Alexander Armstrong

English actor, comedian, broadcaster and singer

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
When I was little I wanted to be a conductor. I knew there was a man in a smart coat who waved his arms around at the opera and I thought: "There's the job for me."

Laura Potter, This much I know, The Guardian, 13 March 2010 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 232 →
Angela Hartnett English chef
Anything and everything. I watched the Olympics and wanted to be an 800m runner. If I watched Inspector Morse, I wanted to be a pathologist.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 August 2022 source ↗
Martin Freeman English actor
I wanted to be a footballer and then a squash player – I was in with a chance because I was very good. But I fell out of love with that by 14 or 15 and joined a youth theatre.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 January 2019 source ↗
Adwoa Aboah British fashion model
I wanted to be a cooker. Not a cook: I wanted to actually be the stove.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 March 2019 source ↗
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw Founder and executive chairperson of Biocon
I wanted to get into medical college.
Recorded Kripa Mahalingam, Secret diary of an entrepreneur, Outlook Business, 24 March 2018 source ↗

More from Alexander Armstrong

View profile →

More on identity & self

Also answered this

Shirley Ballas, Paul O'Grady, Melissa McCarthy, Rose McGowan, Julia Ormond, Joss Stone

Search the directory for somebody in particular.

Explore further

Report this answer