Eleanor Tomlinson
English actress
Losing out on a role, any role. I get so invested. I can take rejection, but only when useful feedback is given.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I bought a BMW 7 series and my best mate said: “I don’t think you should buy this, bro, it’s too cheap.” And I said: “Let’s live the dream” and put my foot down hard on the accelerator and the bottom of the engine and the gearbox blew out.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 December 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 369 →
Gloria Estefan
Cuban-American singer and songwriter
Not yet being able to sing in a free Cuba.
Julie Walters
British actress
I don't go in for disappointment.
Simon Mayo
English radio presenter and author
Feeling as though I had to leave Radio 2 to get my life back on track. I had every intention of being David Jacobs or Brian Matthew and going on until I was 127, but it didn’t turn out like that.
More from Guz Khan
View profile →Turning my life around. Seeing the level of criminality I was involved with, and coming to the realisation that it was not the life that I should be leading.
Juicy, funny, impulsive.
Impulsivity. We end up in strange places, like right now – I am in the Middle East.
Leafleting for a window company when I was 12. I remember putting them through letterboxes thinking: I’m going to sell drugs, because this is rubbish.
We’re not really allowed to cry where I’m from. I can only cry in summer, at the height of hay fever.
Want for your brothers and sisters what you want for yourself.
More on failure & regret
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 205 answers
- What is the worst thing anyone has said to you? 124 answers
- Which moment embarrassed you most? 124 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 77 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 39 answers
Also answered this
Rory Bremner, Enrique Iglesias, Viggo Mortensen, Shirley MacLaine, Sue Townsend, Alan Dale
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All failure & regret questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject