Alan Dale: What did you want to be when you were growing up?

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.

Recorded Alan Dale said elsewhere, not written here

As a kid I used to fantasize about being Clayton Moore, the masked hero in The Lone Ranger. I’m much too old to play him now – I’d have to be the baddie who he kills – although I do have a horse as King Arthur, well someone clopping along behind me with a pair of coconuts.

20 Questions With …, WhatsOnStage, 10 March 2008 source ↗

Others on this question

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Alex Hassell

My brother Joe, he’s nine years older than me.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 16 May 2026 source ↗

Andrew O'Hagan Scottish author

Most days, I wanted to be Albrecht in the classical ballet Giselle, dancing until I dropped dead.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 July 2026 source ↗

Aidan Gillen Irish actor

A stuntman. Evel Knievel was an icon.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 May 2017 source ↗

Viv Albertine Australian-born British musician and writer

I had no female role models growing up. I lived an incredibly sheltered life: there was no TV at home and we had no visitors. It wasn’t until rock and pop came into my life that I concocted myself as a role model.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 October 2020 source ↗