Ashley Jensen: What did you want to be when you were growing up?

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

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.

Recorded Ashley Jensen said elsewhere, not written here

I did want to be an actor from an early age although I briefly dabbled with the idea of being a vet until I realised you had to stick your hand up a cow’s arse.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 October 2017 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 204 →

Dominic West English actor

I wanted to race cars.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 December 2018 source ↗

Robert Bathurst English theatre and television actor

Wimbledon champion. I won the title frequently when playing against a pebbledash wall at home in Ireland.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 June 2020 source ↗

Mellody Hobson Co-chief executive and president of Ariel Investments

And all the while I was growing up, of course, there were just constant conversations about money and money being tight and how are we going to make ends meet and sometimes not having enough money. And it really just made me committed to living a life with much more financial security.

Recorded Farai Chideya, News & Notes, Leading Ladies series, NPR, 22 March 2007 source ↗

Mario Molina Atmospheric chemist; Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1995

For me, it was just a thrill. I just remember thinking at that time, this is the sort of thing I would like to do, if I could. I did not come from a family of scientists. My father was a lawyer, my older brother was a lawyer.

Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Sun Valley, Idaho, 29 June 1996 source ↗