Martin Freeman
English actor
The Wimpy in Kingston when I was 16. I’d recently become vegetarian, and there weren’t many veggie burgers in 1988.
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's long-running Q&A repeatedly asks this standing question, with minor tense variation.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I worked in the stores of Edgware hospital when I was about 17, and it was grey and depressing.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 August 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
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Paul McKenna
British hypnotist and TV personality
I was a Harrods store detective for a day. I was so bad at it, one of the other detectives thought I looked suspicious and reported me.
Shane MacGowan
Irish singer-songwriter
Helping to slaughter farmyard animals as a kid; watching while my aunties cut them up to get their guts out and seeing eggs floating around in the hens. That made me become a vegetarian.
Jessica Raine
British actress
A temp job at BT. I still have nightmares about ADSL lines. I still don’t know what one is. I would find myself on national conference calls being questioned about ADSL lines and told that the problem was in London. I would try not to breathe so they would forget I was there.
More from Kevin Rowland
View profile →The contentment I have now.
Insanity. I am on a recovery programme – clean from drugs and drink for many years – and if I stopped doing all that stuff I’d go crazy pretty quick and pick up drugs again, because I was a real fucking addict.
My dad said, “You’re going nowhere.” I was seven or eight.
My brother Pete passing on in 2005.
Shakespeare said, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” – I think that’s true.
Gerry Adams, because he’s got incredible integrity and vision, and he’s had to put up with so much flak.
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- What is the part of your job that people would be surprised is most of your job? 41 answers
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