On one of my first jobs, Cold Mountain, I got a wasp in my ear in front of Jude Law. He couldn’t see the wasp so just saw me freak out.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 16 May 2026 source ↗
The question
When were you most embarrassed?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
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On one of my first jobs, Cold Mountain, I got a wasp in my ear in front of Jude Law. He couldn’t see the wasp so just saw me freak out.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 16 May 2026 source ↗
That time I congratulated a waitress on being pregnant.
When I was appointed director of public prosecutions, I had a government car and visited the security services. When I came out, I got into the back of what I thought was my car, but it was somebody’s private car and they told me in no uncertain terms to get out. I had to reverse out with as much dignity as I could, with the head of security services watching.
I started stammering badly the first time I was on live radio, on Woman’s Hour on Radio 4. When I think about it now it brings me out in a cold sweat.
Years ago, I was trying to get with one of the big agencies and I cobbled together a VHS tape of me in adverts and sobbing in The Bill, and took it United Agents for the attention of Dallas Smith. A week later I went back and said, “Has she looked at the tape?” And they were, like, “Dallas is a he, no he hasn’t and he doesn’t want to,” and handed it back to me.
Obsequiousness.
Being accepted for who you are but also being encouraged to continue to grow.
My brother Joe, he’s nine years older than me.
As someone with integrity.
Not playing Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. I am a huge Brando fan and a big Tennessee Williams fan and it’s a part I would love to have a go at. It’s possible I still could but I’m too old, really.
Careless cruelty.
Julian Lloyd Webber, Eleanor Tomlinson, Layton Williams, Fearne Cotton, Phoebe Dynevor, Chiwetel Ejiofor
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