Maybe I should have agreed to take the job of controller of BBC One when Bill Cotton offered it to me. I do feel a wimp; I would have been the first woman in the job.What do you consider your greatest achievement? I don’t really claim credit, I hope, for helping to launch Childline and the Silver Line and Silver Stories. It is an achievement that they all exist, but that is down to their amazing teams.
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Repeated verbatim in The Guardian's long-running Saturday Q&A; two publisher-hosted examples establish recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The years between 13 and 17, which I think are very formative, and the rather arid public school upbringing I had at Harrow.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 April 2017 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 203 →
David Hasselhoff
American actor, singer, and television personality
My drinking habits.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy
British journalist
I’d have been there on the spot for every major news story I’ve talked about in the studio, at the time it happened.
Eve Ensler
American playwright, performer, feminist, and activist
I would have honoured my body, I would have lived inside it, cherished it and protected it.
More from Edward Fox
View profile →To be able to play the piano like Artur Schnabel.
Probably a suit. If you buy a good suit, it lasts beyond your lifetime.
I cry all the time. I like crying: it means that you’re more truly aware of a circumstance or a person or an event.
If you have a nice drink before going to bed, you don’t stay awake at night. I like almost anything in a bottle.
I feel lucky to have been in this business for as long as I have. When I think of the intake that I was with at Rada, only one other person is still an actor, an old fellow called Bill Gaunt.
Aside from family life, which is the ultimate happiness, when I see or hear a great artist.
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