Michelle Dockery: 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.

Michelle Dockery

British actress

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

Many things. I remember wanting to be a vet, a ballet dancer and a hairdresser.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 January 2020 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 197 →

Jack Whitehall English comedian, actor, presenter and writer

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

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

Nick Grimshaw English television and radio presenter

Genuinely, the host of Radio 1’s Breakfast Show.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 June 2017 source ↗

Anne Enright Novelist and short-story writer

When I was seven I wanted to be a nun. When I was eight, I wanted to be a boy so that I could be anything I wanted. Also, of course, I wanted to be Samantha in Bewitched.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 September 2024 source ↗

Adrian Edmondson English actor, comedian, musician and writer

I only ever wanted to be an actor or a rock star. I was suspended from school in the sixth form and allowed back only when I promised to join the army. But I lied.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 July 2018 source ↗