Louis Theroux
British and American journalist and author
To have made a career in TV while being nervous by nature and incapable of doing a piece to camera.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Professionally, becoming a relative success in a job that I love; and personally, helping to raise two wonderful children.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 March 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
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Sam Neill
New Zealand actor
Still being in work. And my vineyards; they’re beautiful.
Sandy Powell
British costume designer
To be getting paid for doing something I love.
Picking myself back up after very tricky times and trying again.
More from John Simm
View profile →Live in the moment. Enjoy life because time cruelly speeds up as you get older and becomes scarily finite.
After the birth of both my children, although Manchester United winning the treble in 1999 came pretty close.
Arrogance, bullying, meanness – just try to be kind, it’s not difficult.
Outliving my kids – and rats.
Going to pieces while meeting John Squire, the lead guitarist of the Stone Roses, backstage after a gig. I completely lost the ability to speak. I told him I had the same guitars as he’d just used on stage, and when he asked me which ones, the words completely went out of my head and there was a huge pause, and then his wife tapped his shoulder and he wandered off.
Working in a very busy bar in the West End when I was trying to pay my way through drama school. I had to dance in a cage in a vest and cycling shorts to Venus by Bananarama, Greased Lightnin’ and Y.M.C.A. every night. It was excruciating.
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