“Next! We’re looking for somebody else.”
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
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.
It’s the stuff about my appearance that sticks. I read I had a face like a crumpled napkin and teeth that could till a field.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 March 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 128 →Glenda Jackson said I was an amateur during rehearsal for The White Devil at the Old Vic. I called her a cow, but that was inadequate.
Belinda Carlisle
American singer
“You sing like a goat.” When I did my French album [Voila], this French woman – a supposed friend – said to my face: “It’s fantastic but, how come you sound like a chèvre?” It was like someone had hit me in the stomach.
Is that the final mix?
More from Olly Alexander
View profile →Jill Nalder. Lydia West played her character in It’s a Sin. She was on the wards with nurses caring for patients who were dying [of Aids] when lots of people wouldn’t go near them.
Like something or someone is part of your DNA, the fabric of who you are.
I can be an overthinker and a vicious self-critic.
Early in my career I got really close to being one of the kids in the Narnia movie. I remember being crushed.
At the Mighty Hoopla festival, Kimberley and Nicola from Girls Aloud joined me on stage for a Girls Aloud song. I completely forgot the words.
More on failure & regret
- What has been your biggest disappointment? 373 answers
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 210 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 209 answers
- Which moment embarrassed you most? 126 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 81 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 41 answers
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Omid Djalili, John Waters, Eleanor Tomlinson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ed Harris, Rose Ayling-Ellis
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- All failure & regret questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject