Toyah Willcox: 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.

Toyah Willcox

English singer-songwriter, actress and television presenter

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

A man. I have always fought against being gender specific. I just don’t like being identified as female: I’m a person.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 April 2019 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 197 →

Desmond Tutu Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town; chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Nobel Peace Prize, 1984

I know that for a very long time my consuming passion, which was confirmed when I contracted TB — I had TB when I was about 12 or so — was I wanted to be a physician and when I got TB I was even more determined. I want to be physician so that I can find a cure for the scourge. And, in fact, I was admitted to medical school. If we had had the funds maybe today I would have been a physician.

Recorded Academy of Achievement interview source ↗

Jack Davenport

Not a child, which was short-sighted of me.

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

Kate Mosse English writer

First I wanted to be in the circus, then a tap dancer, then prime minister. I have failed at all three.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 March 2022 source ↗

Dominic West English actor

I wanted to race cars.

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