Hugh Skinner: What do you fear most?

The question

Originally asked

Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire

The exact prompt is fixed in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire and independently sustained in The Guardian's The Q&A over multiple decades.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Hugh Skinner

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

Pigeons. One got stuck in my flat once for quite a long time and it really changed how I feel about them.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 May 2026 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 256 →

Jodie Foster

Naming my greatest fear, because then I’ll have to admit it, won’t I?

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, February 2024 source ↗

Robert Carlyle Scottish actor

Losing my family in some way.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 February 2008 source ↗

Paul McKenna British hypnotist and TV personality

My wife dying. I wouldn’t know how to go on.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 January 2023 source ↗

Andrea Bocelli

I fear the arrogance we are all at risk of, the pride that pushes us to put “I” in place of “God”. More prosaically, I fear physical pain because it risks stripping us of our dignity.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 November 2024 source ↗

More from Hugh Skinner

View profile →

Question When were you most embarrassed? Failure & regret

Accidentally walking on to set naked for a scene where I wasn’t actually supposed to be naked.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 May 2026 source ↗

Question What do you believe happens when we die? Death & what remains

I think we’re definitely gone, but I do think people leave traces everywhere from what they did in life, and live on and continue to make an impact through the ripple effect of that.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 May 2026 source ↗