Marc Almond: What did you want to be when you were growing up?

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

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.

Recorded Marc Almond said elsewhere, not written here

A vet, but then I discovered you needed qualifications.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 November 2017 source ↗

Others on this question

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Floella Benjamin British actress, presenter, and peer

A teacher. Teachers can change lives.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 February 2017 source ↗

Mark Bonnar

First, I wanted to be a historian, then a drummer, and after that I just wanted to be employed. And I still do.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 April 2025 source ↗

Ben Okri

Composer, pirate, scientist, philosopher.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 July 2026 source ↗

Martin Freeman English actor

I wanted to be a footballer and then a squash player – I was in with a chance because I was very good. But I fell out of love with that by 14 or 15 and joined a youth theatre.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 January 2019 source ↗

More from Marc Almond

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Question When were you happiest? Time & hindsight

In my first bedsit when I went to art college in Leeds. It was a hideous basement, but I loved the freedom.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 November 2017 source ↗

Question What most recently made you cry? Identity & self

Yesterday: I went to see the film God’s Own Country.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 November 2017 source ↗

Question Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought? Money & investment

A black Mercedes 500 coupé in the mid-1980s. I thought it was one of the most beautiful things I’d seen. (I had been clubbing the night before.) And I can’t drive.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 November 2017 source ↗