My wife when I tried out some new material on her, said: “I’m sure the people who like you would like that.”
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
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The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 December 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 125 →It’s that bad, I’d never repeat it. I’ll just say it was particularly cruel and incredibly racist. It was somebody that I used to date, at the end of the relationship, and it hurt very deeply.
Someone once saw me in a play and said that I was disgusting.
When I was first acting, in college, a relative came and saw me in Hedda Gabler and she said: “Look in the mirror, you’re not an actor. An actor looks like Mel Gibson.”
More from Sarah Hadland
View profile →A missionary in Africa – I think that was Sunday school-based.
Very impatient, bossy, always late.
If there could be a double of me to look after my child when I’m working.
Laziness, lack of empathy, lack of humour.
Lemn Sissay. What happened to him and what he’s done with his life is extraordinary.
Magician’s assistant on a cruise ship for two weeks when I was 19. When I was meant to be being levitated, I was silently crying while pretending to be unconscious as I hung limply off a metal pole. It was bleak.
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