The question
Which trait in yourself do you like least?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's The Q&A has retained this Proust-derived prompt from at least 2007 through 2026, and ABC independently put it to the Obamas in 2011.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I lose bank cards, I’m untidy, I get bored very quickly.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 April 2024 source ↗
My tendency to skip meals.
Self-righteousness and a phobia of embarrassment.
When I ruin someone else’s story because I think mine is better, so butt in before they’ve finished theirs.
My internalised misogyny that still manages to cloud some of my thinking.
Being murdered – I listen to too many true-crime podcasts.
Bullying, flakiness, rudeness, lack of humility, being patronising and ungenerous.
Not getting into drama school when I was 17. In those days, the first thing people said was, “Where did you train?”
I like to think that my friends, my auntie and my mum are up there having a big party and that I could join them.
Can I have more than three? Creative, kind, a grafter, engaging, loyal, fun and generous.
A radio presenter said I had yellow teeth – to my face. When I was 45, a manager in LA said I was too old to work in Hollywood; and then she rang my agent and said, “Can you tell your client never to wear that perfume again because it made me feel sick.”
Courtney Pine, Ina Garten, Cybill Shepherd, Nuala McGovern, Don Rickles, Romola Garai
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