A ballet dancer.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
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
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.
I wanted to be like my dad, who was an academic, because he had an office packed full of books, always had loud music on, and seemed to get to do what he wanted.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 February 2022 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 195 →Composer, pirate, scientist, philosopher.
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
Mellody Hobson
Co-chief executive and president of Ariel Investments
And all the while I was growing up, of course, there were just constant conversations about money and money being tight and how are we going to make ends meet and sometimes not having enough money. And it really just made me committed to living a life with much more financial security.
More from Lauren Laverne
View profile →It would have been lovely to have grown up in private like a lot of my friends.
My biggest disappointment is always myself. That’s my Catholic upbringing.
A caravan. I was brought up going on caravan holidays – but we quickly realised that a double-axle caravan was too much of a commitment and sold it.
I’d rather be enjoyed while I am still here.
There are different flavours of happy, but I think my favourite is the quiet contentment when several generations of family are sitting together watching a crowd-pleaser like Harry Potter on the telly.
The Strictly Come Dancing final almost destroyed me. I was howling all the way through – John and Johannes and then Rose and Giovanni. Oh my God.
More on identity & self
Also answered this
Mark Bonnar, Jessica Brown Findlay, Billy Porter, Winston Churchill, Erin Doherty, Sharleen Spiteri
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