Louis Theroux
British and American journalist and author
There was a period in the early 2000s when I had been doing celebrity profiles and thought I’d lost my way creatively.
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's long-running Q&A repeatedly asks this standing question, with minor tense variation.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Horrible gigs at the beginning, when no one’s interested.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 July 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 232 →
Robbie Williams
English singer
I sold double glazing in Stoke when I was 16. That was for two weeks. Other than that, I’ve never really had a “job”.
Shucking oysters one summer in Nice.
Malcolm Gladwell
Staff writer at The New Yorker; author of The Tipping Point and Outliers
I was a reporter for many years at the Washington Post. Although I loved every minute, I don’t think I was a very good reporter.
More from Melanie Blatt
View profile →I would put the brain that I have now into my 20-year-old body.
Just being remembered at all would be great.
“Your career will be over if you have the baby.”To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why? My parents, for my teenage years. I tried to run away when I was 15. We lived in a fishing village in France and, with my boyfriend, I headed to Spain to sell arts and crafts on the beach. Mum came and took me home.
Now, with time and wisdom you know your happy places.
I haven’t stopped crying since Glastonbury, because I’m on a massive comedown.
More on craft & work
- What do you consider your greatest achievement? 193 answers
- How does a new work begin for you? 70 answers
- How do you know when a piece of work is finished? 69 answers
- What do you do when you feel creatively blocked or stuck? 69 answers
- How much rewriting or revision do you do? 51 answers
- What is the part of your job that people would be surprised is most of your job? 47 answers
Also answered this
Craig David, Martin Kemp, Charlotte Church, Björn Ulvaeus, Sue Perkins, Ricky Wilson
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All craft & work questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject