I cut people off a lot when I talk. It’s a terrible habit.
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
How would you like to die?
Death & what remains
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
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.
If hoarding and procrastination were Olympic sports, I’d have at least 70 gold medals.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, August 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
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Eugene Levy
Actor and writer
The inability to laugh before 11 a.m.
Intermittent laziness.
I can be a people-pleaser, to the detriment of my own needs sometimes.
More from Audra McDonald
View profile →Balloons. I have a big phobia of balloons. Big.
In my bed at home at a ripe old age with the knowledge that my children, and grandchildren if I have any, are thriving, happy, and provided for.
Meghan Markle. I don’t know how she continues to walk through this world with the grace, strength, and purpose that she does given the unbearable amount of vitriol and hate she has been subjected to, but she does. I wish she didn’t have to.
Being at home on a Sunday night with my husband, Will, and all of our children, eating chicken tikka masala and naan from our favorite restaurant.
In the hospital giving birth to my second daughter with my first daughter right there in the room as it was happening. I don’t remember any pain. I just remember feeling more alive and full of fierce mama bear love than at any other point in my life.
More on identity & self
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Julian Clary, Jane Asher, Rose Ayling-Ellis, Michael Flatley, John Malkovich, Ed Harris
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