Stanley Tucci: 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.

Stanley Tucci

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

Losing one of my children, as there is no greater loss.

Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, October 2024 source ↗

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Brooke Shields

Drowning. The feeling of not being able to take a breath. I’m sure my therapist would have something to say about the deep psychological reasons for it.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, February 2025 source ↗

Gayle King Broadcaster

I know we all have to die, but when my time comes, I’d rather it not be because a goose flew into the engine of a plane I’m on.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, July 2016 source ↗

Neil Patrick Harris Actor

That it all goes away and never comes back.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, February 2015 source ↗

Tom Lubbock Art critic

I think that loss of speech, and of understanding of speech, and of understanding of writing, and of coherent writing – these losses will amount to the loss of my mind. I know what this feels like and it has no insides, no internal echo. Mind means talking to oneself. There wouldn't be any secret mind surviving in me.

Recorded The Observer, from the journals he kept between 2008 and 2010, 7 November 2010 source ↗

More from Stanley Tucci

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Question What does happiness look like for you when life is going well? Identity & self

A meal alfresco with people I love.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 15 October 2024 source ↗

Question What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy? Time & hindsight

Every time one of my kids was born and I knew that they were healthy.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 January 2016 source ↗

Question What trait do you most dislike in other people? Values & belief

Cruelty. I don’t see the point.

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

Question Who alive today do you admire most, and what draws you to them? Values & belief

President Zelenskyy.

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

Question Who deserves an apology from you, and for what? Failure & regret

My late wife – she died of cancer. We tried everything we could do to save her. I wish that I could have done more and that I could have been with her at the moment she passed away. I couldn’t be in that room, because I knew it would be so devastating that I wouldn’t be able to take care of the kids after.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 January 2016 source ↗

Question What most recently moved you to tears? Identity & self

I cried recently, thinking about my late wife.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 January 2016 source ↗

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