PE
After losing my mum still managing to finish drama school, because that was really difficult. I lost her in the first year.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 November 2023 source ↗
The question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
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Others on this question
View all 206 →
Marc Almond
English singer
Still being here, aged 60. If I thought I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.
Francesca Martinez
British comedian
My relationship.
du Beke
English dancer and TV presenter
Convincing my wife to marry me and have children with me.
Rose McGowan
American actress and activist
Waking people up.
More from Paapa Essiedu
View profile →In order to raise money to pay for myself to go to the National Youth Theatre, I performed a medley of my drama school speeches and some songs for my entire school. Considering I can’t sing, this was terrible. I did U Remind Me by Usher and Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T’s. They paid £2 each – basically, to laugh at me.
Called me the N-word.
A really bad habit of eating sweets before I go to sleep.
I was a happy kid. I had quite a small life: I grew up in Walthamstow and didn’t really leave east London. I didn’t go to the South Bank for the first time until I was 18 years old.
I find it difficult to sit still.
To find as many moments to laugh as possible.
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