Archie Panjabi
British actress
Redeeming mortgages. I did it for a few weeks, and it sealed the deal that I wanted a career in entertainment.
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
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.
Working as the assistant to an agony aunt on a women’s magazine. When we didn’t get enough heartbreaking letters, we made them up.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 April 2022 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 232 →
Sofia Helin
Swedish actress
Acting, when you don’t want to do it or you disagree with everything, is almost like having sex with someone you don’t like. I had one experience like that on stage, in a terrible version of The Cherry Orchard. I put on a wig, dark-coloured contacts and just hoped no one would recognise me.
John Simpson
English journalist
Reading the news. It’s a dull job.
Double-glazing sales when I was about 16 – on the phone, cold calling. Horrendous.
More from Rose Tremain
View profile →Like coming home.
Meryl Streep. For all her truthful and perfected offerings that have taken me to an “elsewhere”, in which my mind could feel both soothed and stimulated.
When I first met Richard, in 1992, on a British Council writers’ tour of Adelaide. We were drinking Australian lager while parakeets squawked rudely in the neighbourhood gumtrees.
The film of Restoration. A beautiful cast. An award-winning designer. A massive budget. A dog’s dinner.
The only drink I really, really like is champagne.
We live in a fearful age: Brexit, Covid, global warming, cancel culture, war in Ukraine. Add in pancreatic cancer and you find me in an advanced and complex state of anxiety.
More on craft & work
- What do you consider your greatest achievement? 193 answers
- How does a new work begin for you? 70 answers
- How do you know when a piece of work is finished? 69 answers
- What do you do when you feel creatively blocked or stuck? 69 answers
- How much rewriting or revision do you do? 51 answers
- What is the part of your job that people would be surprised is most of your job? 47 answers
Also answered this
Sandi Toksvig, Fran Lebowitz, Sue Perkins, Monty Don, Bernadine Evaristo, Harlan Coben
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All craft & work questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject