The question
What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Our wedding weekend in Ireland.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 April 2026 source ↗
Phoning my dad to tell him we’d won the Edinburgh Perrier award with The League Of Gentlemen in 1997.
When my album went to No 1.
At the altar all seven times.
Last year, during four days in January, when I directed Rhoda, my second short film, in a tiny house in Camberwell with Juliet Stevenson and Emma D’Arcy.
When I was growing up, my mother would accuse me of showing off. That’s the most shaming, humbling, horrible thing. What was I doing? Showing off!
Back in the day, when comedy was crueller, my monologues were full of terrible jokes about people, and you can’t apologise because then you’re asking people to forgive you. Your punishment is to walk around knowing you said these horrible things.
I was stabbed in my 20s. It was a late-night mugging and, while taking my wallet, they stabbed me in my chest.
Impatience married with being very quick to judge.
I called Elizabeth McGovern Elizabeth Montgomery throughout a show. But, bless her, she didn’t say anything.
Now that I’m at this end of my career, I’m gobsmacked that I’ve managed to cling on for as long as I have.
Andy Serkis, Martin Sheen, Val McDermid, Bryan Cranston, Ralph Ineson, Abigail Breslin
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