I worked with Stephen Fry recently and we had a real heart-to-heart. I asked: “What was it like being in prison for being gay?” And thank God someone came in and he didn’t hear me say it. I was mixing him up with when he played Oscar Wilde. I could picture him in his cell.
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
Question
When was the last time you changed your mind about something?
Change of mind
Question
Which book are you ashamed not to have read?
Taste & recommendation
Question
What happens when we die?
Death & what remains
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim recurring question in The Guardian's Q&A series.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Dancing on stage with an open fly.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 April 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 126 →
Neil Gaiman
Author of fiction, comics and screenplays
The idiocy of going to Skye from New Zealand in April 2020. All of a sudden, I’m turning on the news and hearing myself as an item. I have never been more mortified.
Signing away the rights to my life story to a major motion-picture company for a sum that I have since been told was way below the market rate.
Falling flat on my face in Billy Elliot on Boxing Day when I was 14. I fell smack bang at the end of my number. I was mortified.
More from Gregory Porter
View profile →“You’re selfish.” It was a friend.
When I worked at a dog food company shovelling the exterminated rats.
I worry about doing everything right with my kids.
Two days ago. To move to New York.
Because it’s in one of my songs, War and Peace.
An accounting is given of our lives. Did you give more than you’ve taken? Hurt more people than you’ve helped?
More on failure & regret
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- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 210 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 209 answers
- What is the worst thing anyone has said to you? 128 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 81 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 41 answers
Also answered this
Minnie Driver, Richard Eyre, Edward Enninful, John Simm, Kerry Godliman, Frank Cottrell-Boyce
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