The question
How close have you come to dying?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.
A blood clot in my artery when I was 23.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 April 2026 source ↗
Skydiving: the parachute got tangled around my legs.
Brighton, 1984. I was in another hotel just a few yards away.
Have you seen my documentaries?
I can dodge the bullets – I’m lucky.
My tendency to be avoidant.
Someone to clean my apartment.
Crashing in an aeroplane into an ocean at night.
Your lowest moment is temporary.
Curious, thoughtful and kind.
In my 20s I was in a show called The Unauthorised Autobiography of Samantha Brown. The actor who played my dad messed up his lines and it made me laugh so hard that I ended up peeing my pants.
Rick Astley, Edmund Hillary, Courtney Pine, Aidan Gillen, Paul Kalanithi, Orlando Bloom
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