Shirley Ballas: 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 Shirley Ballas said elsewhere, not written here

Dancing was in my bones from when I started ballet at two.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 June 2018 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 195 →

Björn Ulvaeus Swedish musician

Successful like my two uncles, who were paper industry magnates.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 June 2020 source ↗

Shinya Yamanaka Stem cell biologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 2012

I was born in Osaka, Japan. It was 45 years ago. My father has a small factory in Osaka, and we lived next to his factory

Recorded Academy of Achievement interviewer, Academy of Achievement interview, 2008 source ↗

Nick Grimshaw English television and radio presenter

Genuinely, the host of Radio 1’s Breakfast Show.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 June 2017 source ↗

Edmund Hillary Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953

I really had no idea whatsoever. I feel that my life developed as I went along. I was never one of those people who, at an early age, had picked an objective and worked steadily towards it. All I knew was that I wanted to get involved in adventurous activity. I didn’t have any specific type of activity in mind, but I wanted to do things that were exciting and adventurous. I had a fairly diffused feeling as to what precisely it should be.

Recorded Academy of Achievement interview source ↗