The question
What do you fear most?Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
The exact prompt is fixed in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire and independently sustained in The Guardian's The Q&A over multiple decades.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Climate change.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 August 2026 source ↗
Getting thrown down a well.
I’ve always been frightened of the dark. I sometimes wonder whether it stems from being away filming from the age of five. I can remember being devastatingly homesick and having a little nightlight I used to look at to reassure myself things were all right.
Small things make me anxious – like social things – but I have no big fears because I have faith in my heart.
Endless vomiting. That comes from my emetophobia, which is a huge part of my OCD.
Fifteen years ago, I totally forgot my lines on stage and was mortified. We skipped two pages of dialogue and took three minutes off the play – to the delight of the audience!
At the election of Joe Biden, thinking we were out of the woods. Wrong.
A dress designer.
Don’t answer every question you’re asked.
“Let’s face it, you’re not Ingrid Bergman.” I was 19 and he was a potential boyfriend. My only thought at the time was: “I’m not?”
Not keeping off the last 5lbs.
Frank McCourt, Joyce Carol Oates, Father John Misty, Rafael Nadal, Neil Patrick Harris, Paul McKenna
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