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.
My kids navigating the world as it is today – and daddy longlegs.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 August 2026 source ↗
Not being loved.
Wasting my life.
Running out of ideas.
The loss of a child.
A sports car. I was in my 20s; I’d fallen out with my boyfriend, so to cheer myself up I got myself a little silver and black Mazda and a matching jumper and jacket. And do you know what, it worked. I saw him do a double take.
Growing three brains.
Coldness, selfishness.
I think I had a close shave with the taxi driver John Worboys. I was in Soho and going back to Chiswick where I lived, and I got a black cab. This guy wouldn’t stop talking and he offered me champagne, and I said: “I don’t like champagne.” It went a bit quiet and I thought I’d offended him. Then I remember going: “Hang on a minute, you shouldn’t be drinking champagne if you’re driving.” And he said: “I’ve just won the lottery and I’m finished after this.” I had a lucky escape.
She was surprisingly good at the harpsichord.
The second agent I had said: “The thing is, you look like something but then you open your mouth.” So I got myself a sketch show and left, and she lost out.
Mike Wallace, Renée Zellweger, Patti Smith, Gino D'Acampo, Michael Douglas, Derek Jeter
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