Sam Taylor-Wood
British film director, artist and photographer
The two times I've been pregnant. With Jessie, I lay on a sofa and watched The West Wing for nine months.
When were you happiest?
Question
What do you value most in your friends?
Relationships
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
How would you like to die?
Death & what remains
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
On the island of Bequia—one summer, out of the blue, a benefactor (thank you, Charlene) flew our entire family there and put us up in a cliffside house that was a weird mixture of Gaudí and Fred Flintstone and where we went to sleep at eight and got up at five. In between we read, swam, hiked, and unknowingly enjoyed the last moment before the irrevocable shear of adolescence set in.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, March 2018 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 579 →
Johnny Flynn
British actor and musician
When I was about eight, by a river waiting for my dad to finish fishing, eating a Mars bar, drinking a can of Coke and listening to Beat It by Michael Jackson on my Walkman. I remember feeling I couldn’t be happier.
Elisabeth Moss
American actor
Whenever I'm with my mum and brother. We have family dinners every Sunday – it's become quite the tradition.
Stuart Broad
English former cricketer and commentator
Winning the Ashes in 2009.
More from Sally Mann
View profile →Knowing when to show up and when to go home.
The loss of a child.
Quickly, without warning, maybe even in my sleep, and while we're putting in requests: before I lose my mind and my ability to gallop across the countryside on horseback.
Reading. And, in particular, reading on the deck of the cabin while my children play in the river below.
More on time & hindsight
- What is the most important lesson life has taught you? 139 answers
- What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore? 81 answers
- What scares you about getting older? 61 answers
- What is the best advice you have ever received? 29 answers
- If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why? 24 answers
- What is something you were told by a parent, teacher, or mentor that you still repeat to yourself? 23 answers
Also answered this
Paul Smith, Trevor McDonald, James McAvoy, Kate Nash, Charles Collingwood, Abi Morgan
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All time & hindsight questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject