Aidan Gillen
Irish actor
A stuntman. Evel Knievel was an icon.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Question
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Daily life
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
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.
Most days, I wanted to be Albrecht in the classical ballet Giselle, dancing until I dropped dead.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 July 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
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Sonia Sotomayor
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 2009–present
My diabetes. You couldn’t go into law enforcement [with that illness]. Now I believe in some police forces you can do that. It wasn’t possible back then. But for a then-8-year-old to have my ambition — my dream — destroyed, broke my heart.
Steve Pemberton
British actor and comedian
What I am now, but with a better singing voice.
Composer, pirate, scientist, philosopher.
More from Andrew O'Hagan
View profile →For world capitalism to grind to a halt.
Like getting out of the right side of the bed every morning, even when you don’t.
As a good friend.
The internet. Such potential for good and for levelling up the world, but such a quagmire in reality.
More on identity & self
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Jack Whitehall, Shirley MacLaine, Kate Mosse, Margaret Atwood, David Hare, Pauline McLynn
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