The question
Which trait in yourself do you like least?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.
Always saying yes to people. For example, I’m doing this.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 June 2025 source ↗
I’m very impatient – next question.
The way I allow myself to talk to myself.
I cut people off a lot when I talk. It’s a terrible habit.
Thinking that I am less-than. That thinking is cunning, baffling, and insidious, and I must guard against it every hour of every day.
Do the secret thing you know you were born to do.
Appearing on US breakfast radio. I heard the DJ say that after the news we would hear from the author Lincoln Child. I had to choose between making a guy with a mixed-up PR release look like an idiot or pretending to be Lincoln. I pretended.
I’m from Birmingham. I’m not afraid of things. Things are afraid of me.
“Try this, you’ll love it.”
More than I can, sadly. I led the softest of lives in the softest of times, and my daughter will face sterner challenges.
A painting by Renoir, paid for by demanding a huge fee for a screenwriting deal with a producer I didn’t want to work for. The movie was never made.
Sofia Coppola, Ben Okri, Alex Hassell, Helena Bonham Carter, Adrian Dunbar, Joseph Fiennes
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