Ciarán Hinds: What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?

What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Ciarán Hinds said elsewhere, not written here

As a young actor, again at the Citizens theatre, I was making an exit and a theatregoer leaned over the balcony and said, “You’re terrible!”

The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 July 2025 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 122 →

Bruno Tonioli Italian choreographer

Growing up as a gay boy in a small town, you get used to people saying bad things pretty quickly.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 April 2023 source ↗

Stephanie Beacham

Loved you in Dallas.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 May 2025 source ↗

Lemn Sissay

When I was a child, a member of staff at Wood End Assessment Centre [a former children’s home in Wigan] bellowed: “He copies them poems off of Bob Marley records.”

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 October 2023 source ↗

Richard Eyre

Edward Bond, the playwright, said I was like a turd flowing on the effluent of British culture.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 February 2026 source ↗