Michael Stipe
American singer
Archaeologist, pop star, store cashier.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
A private detective.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 February 2020 source ↗
Others on this question
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Griff Rhys Jones
British actor and comedian
An actor. Then I grew out of that and became one by default. Or sort of one: “Not really an actor”, said Michael Billington.
Shirley Ballas
English ballroom dancer
Dancing was in my bones from when I started ballet at two.
Jack Whitehall
English comedian, actor, presenter and writer
I was hellbent on being a Thunderbird. I was devastated when my parents finally told me it was a fictional organisation. Ruined my 18th.
More from Paterson Joseph
View profile →I wouldn’t live so long in France. After eight years, I came back to London.
Pressing uniforms in a laundry. I was 14. I lied about my age and said I was 16, even though I probably looked about 12.
When my son was about three years old and I was working at the National Theatre. I remember cycling from Twickenham, and thinking, “This is the golden age: I’ll never be happier or more content than this.”
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Katherine Parkinson, Ashley Jensen, Roger Allam, Eleanor Tomlinson, Sue Perkins, Patricia Hodge
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