The question
Who alive today do you admire most, and what draws you to them?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's Q&A repeatedly uses this prompt, sometimes dropping 'living' while retaining the same comparative judgment.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Anybody who works in frontline mental health services for the NHS.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 September 2024 source ↗
On a personal level, the friend who is a single mum raising two kids by herself during this Covid era. She is a real hero. If a historical personality, I choose Mikhail Gorbachev, who probably saved the world from world war three.
My brother, Michael. He is an academic and has devoted his life to scholarship; my life seems trivial by comparison. Bastard.
The Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, who is 100 years old and still working.
Alanis Morissette because, in my earlier career, she was a big influence on me and had a feistiness that you didn’t see much of in women in the industry. Also, she has been very vocal about mental health issues.
I can’t deal with any level of stress.
I have a deep-rooted fear of being in trouble. I once tried to sneak into the back of a photography exhibition with my husband when one of our kids was in a pushchair. We’d arrived late and he suggested we go in through the gift shop and see the last room. As we poked our heads round the door, the security guard noticed us. I shouted, “That man’s trying to get in!”, then ran away.
Hey Ya, by OutKast.
Those abduction situations where you’re packed in a bunker for 30 years.
A sense of optimism.
I’d probably take out a lot of my 20s, when I was rude, annoying and a brat.
Sheridan Smith, Ed Harris, Maureen O'Hara, Terry Gilliam, Bear Grylls, Matt Smith
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