Phoning my dad to tell him we’d won the Edinburgh Perrier award with The League Of Gentlemen in 1997.
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 May 2017 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 581 →Before I realised my parents, sister and I were all mortal.
Standing on stage in between Robert Young and Andrew Innes, blasting away.
Technically, Ibiza 1990, because of the amount of ecstasy I’d taken.
More from Aidan Gillen
View profile →Foxes making love: it’s a very unsettling sound.
The floral waistcoat and shocking-pink shirt combo I wore on my 21st.
Cleaning around the feet of John Malkovich with industrial carpet cleaner while he was trying to learn lines in the foyer of a theatre.
Pyramid Song, by Radiohead, live.
Last year, driving in California, I found myself on the wrong side of the road. I was 30 seconds away from hitting two cars coming the other way.
Teachers at my school, for being such a smartarse.
More on time & hindsight
- What is the most important lesson life has taught you? 141 answers
- What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore? 82 answers
- What scares you about getting older? 63 answers
- What is the best advice you have ever received? 31 answers
- If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why? 24 answers
- What is something you were told by a parent, teacher, or mentor that you still repeat to yourself? 23 answers
Also answered this
Jessica Hynes, Julie Walters, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Jennifer Hudson, Kelsey Grammer, Madhur Jaffrey
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All time & hindsight questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject