The question
As a child, what career or life did you imagine for yourself?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
My brother Joe, he’s nine years older than me.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 16 May 2026 source ↗
A steam train driver.
An actor – that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. I went to stage school when I was 13.
When I was seven I wanted to be a nun. When I was eight, I wanted to be a boy so that I could be anything I wanted. Also, of course, I wanted to be Samantha in Bewitched.
I haven’t grown up.
Driven, sensitive and playful.
To keep trying to listen to yourself.
On one of my first jobs, Cold Mountain, I got a wasp in my ear in front of Jude Law. He couldn’t see the wasp so just saw me freak out.
Careless cruelty.
Not playing Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. I am a huge Brando fan and a big Tennessee Williams fan and it’s a part I would love to have a go at. It’s possible I still could but I’m too old, really.
Being accepted for who you are but also being encouraged to continue to grow.
Lucy Worsley, Angela Hartnett, Ali Abbasi, Katherine Parkinson, Roger Allam, Ashley Jensen
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