Jack Whitehall: As a child, what career or life did you imagine for yourself?

The question

As a child, what career or life did you imagine for yourself?

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.

Jack Whitehall

English comedian, actor, presenter and writer

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

I was hellbent on being a Thunderbird. I was devastated when my parents finally told me it was a fictional organisation. Ruined my 18th.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 April 2023 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 197 →

Shaznay Lewis English singer

An ambulance driver.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 June 2024 source ↗

Angela Hartnett English chef

Anything and everything. I watched the Olympics and wanted to be an 800m runner. If I watched Inspector Morse, I wanted to be a pathologist.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 August 2022 source ↗

Andrew O’Hagan

Most days, I wanted to be Albrecht in the classical ballet Giselle, dancing until I dropped dead.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 July 2026 source ↗

Mario Molina Atmospheric chemist; Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1995

For me, it was just a thrill. I just remember thinking at that time, this is the sort of thing I would like to do, if I could. I did not come from a family of scientists. My father was a lawyer, my older brother was a lawyer.

Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Sun Valley, Idaho, 29 June 1996 source ↗