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 →

Malcolm Gladwell Staff writer at The New Yorker; author of The Tipping Point and Outliers

I didn’t want to be anything because I don’t look ahead. Even as a kid I thought it was pointless.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 April 2021 source ↗

Roger Allam English actor

When I was a child, it was a bus driver or engine driver; then, when I was a teenager, I went to the theatre and wanted to be an actor.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 June 2017 source ↗

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.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 December 2017 source ↗

Fearne Cotton

An air steward, because I loved airports. I wrote a letter to British Airways when I was seven and I’ve got the reply in the loft, which says, “You’re a bit young at seven but do stay in touch.” I was that kind of kid who was eager to start the ball rolling.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 March 2026 source ↗