Zack Polanski: How close have you come to death?

How close have you come to death?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Zack Polanski said elsewhere, not written here

Catching Covid. I don’t think any of us know what we’re messing with still to this day.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 December 2025 source ↗

Others on this question

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Cynthia Nixon American actress and politician

When I was 13, I was on a bicycle and got hit by a taxi in New York.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 April 2017 source ↗

Paapa Essiedu British actor

In 2016, the moment my agent rang me to tell me I’d got the part of Hamlet for the RSC. While I was on the phone, I looked to my left and turned to the right, and a bus whizzed by and the wing mirror was so close to me that it knocked my hat off.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 November 2023 source ↗

Adrian Edmondson English actor, comedian, musician and writer

I hit a bit of lumpy tarmac driving my motorbike over the Pyrenees in the early 1980s. There was no safety barrier and I found myself riding along the edge of a precipice on half the width of the tyres for 100 yards.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 July 2018 source ↗

Kim Wilde English pop singer