Ardal O'Hanlon: What did you want to be when you were growing up?

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.

Ardal O'Hanlon

Irish comedian and actor

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

I always feel stand-up is a great outlet for people who don’t have any discernible talent in music or sport or sculpture or whatever. It’s a great medium for chancers.

TNT Magazine, TNT Magazine, 28 March 2011 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 235 →

Mathew Horne English actor

I wanted to be a prosthetic makeup artist after watching A Nightmare On Elm Street.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 December 2019 source ↗

Rick Astley Singer, songwriter and radio presenter

When I was about 14 and got my first drum kit, I wanted to be a drummer in a band like the Police.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 October 2018 source ↗

Derek Sivers Founder of CD Baby; author of Anything You Want

14. I always played music until then, just like piano lessons. Viola, violin and clarinet as a kid. But at 14 I started playing guitar and I was like, “this is it. This is what I want”. I am so thankful that I had this single mission from the age of 14 till 29. For 15 years of my life I wanted nothing but to be a great musician.

Recorded Joe Ciccarone, podcast transcript, Built Not Born, 13 July 2022 source ↗

Edward Enninful Ghanaian-born English editor and stylist

In African families, you can be one of three things: a doctor, a lawyer or a failure. I wanted to be an Egyptologist, but things worked out in the end.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 December 2022 source ↗