I wanted to be a doctor, like my father.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
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
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.
A baseball pitcher.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 March 2018 source ↗
Others on this question
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Richard Coles
British musician, writer, presenter and priest
A great composer. I wrote to Benjamin Britten to tell him this and that he was my third favourite composer. For some reason he didn’t feel moved to reply.
Bertie Carvel
British actor
Luke Skywalker, for a time. After that, I mainly wanted to have a girlfriend one day.
Joanna Scanlan
British actress and writer
An actor or a nun.
More from John Malkovich
View profile →By my friends as hopefully someone who was a good friend, or at least amusing, but I don’t need to be remembered by people I don’t know.
How long do we have?
The susceptibility to ideology or tribalism.
I admire the mother of my children a great deal, because she’s interesting, smart and funny.
That the Proust Questionnaire will continue to be used by lazy, overworked journalists for another century or so (since you asked …).
If one could shut off the modern world and all the information that flows, not necessarily into your brain but at your face, and doesn’t benefit anything or make one better informed.
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