Joseph Fiennes
English actor
Climbing in Tibet, surfing in Australia and a moment ago by a courgette cutter as I dithered over one of these questions.
How close have you come to death?
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
Question
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Death & what remains
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Ten years ago, I went to visit my dad in Australia. I walked to the edge of a cliff and looked over and tripped. I righted myself but my head was over the edge. No one saw it.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 July 2018 source ↗
Others on this question
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Bryan Adams
Canadian singer-songwriter and musician
Skydiving: the parachute got tangled around my legs.
Ram Dass
Spiritual teacher and author
I was close to death, and I didn't rush into my spirit. I spent the time in the hospital just looking at the pipes on the ceiling. ... I failed because this was a trauma, a trauma, and I'm not reacting to it spiritually.
Scott Mills
English radio DJ and television presenter
I went on a private jet with David Hasselhoff, and it was so turbulent between LA and Vegas I thought it was going down. I also thought: “The headline won’t be about me; it will be: David Hasselhoff and friend.”
More from Sara Pascoe
View profile →I didn’t learn to be intimate with people until I was in my 20s, so I was a very bad friend in my teens. There was a girl I was best friends with at college; I always used to kiss the boys she liked. I’d like to apologise to her.
Nothing – I don’t like music. I want my funeral to be uncomfortably quiet.
Cleaning toilets at McDonald’s when I was 16.
I would be a bit nicer to myself.
To be looked at.
My A-level results - I got two Cs and an A. I had applied to do philosophy at Cambridge, and thought my life was over.
More on death & what remains
- What would you like to be remembered for? 214 answers
- What song would you like played at your funeral? 178 answers
- If you had only one day left to live, how would you spend it — and what would you deliberately avoid doing? 54 answers
- What happens when we die? 51 answers
- What would you like to leave your children? 44 answers
- How would you like to die? 44 answers
Also answered this
Irvine Welsh, Jenny Diski, Ronald Harwood, Julian Clary, Kathy Lette, Ram Dass
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