I don’t have a great fear of anything. I look at things with positive eyes.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 January 2024 source ↗
identity
What is your greatest fear?
Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
The exact prompt is fixed in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire and independently sustained in The Guardian's The Q&A over multiple decades.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
One of 4 questions in The Proust Questionnaire here.
On the record
Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.
Read by age
Any age
In their thirties 10
In their forties 13
In their fifties 16
In their sixties 12
Seventy and beyond 14
I am spooked by water underground, water in drains and water in machinery. I am very frightened of mill wheels.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 March 2024 source ↗
Marina Abramović
Performance artist
To be eaten by a shark.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 October 2024 source ↗
Dependency. Fascism.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 December 2024 source ↗
Becoming deaf and blind, which is what happened to my father.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 May 2025 source ↗
I’m from Birmingham. I’m not afraid of things. Things are afraid of me.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 June 2025 source ↗
To experience the utter powerlessness of locked-in syndrome.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 July 2025 source ↗
I’m not fond of snakes.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 July 2025 source ↗
Dying too young, and spiders.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 August 2025 source ↗
Not being able to work.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 February 2026 source ↗
People finding out my greatest fear.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 April 2026 source ↗
Being run over by a cyclist on a pavement or pedestrian crossing, because it’s nearly happened too frequently.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 June 2026 source ↗
Climate change.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 August 2026 source ↗
Every actor has the same fear – ie, you’re never going to work again.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 August 2026 source ↗
0 answers from members
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