Mariska Hargitay: What trait do you most dislike in other people?

The question

What trait do you most dislike in other people?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

A verbatim standing question in The Guardian's rotating Q&A questionnaire, documented across respondents and years.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Mariska Hargitay

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

The inability to listen. Inauthentic vocal registers. Calling anything other than food “delicious” or “yummy.”

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

Others on this question

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Zack Polanski

Those who create the doom.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 December 2025 source ↗

Anne Enright Novelist and short-story writer

I find it really interesting the way people are drawn to power, usually male power, sometimes in its dark mode. I wonder what they get from it. My experience of bastards is that there is very little material benefit gained from being in their company, though you feel there might be, any minute. Or you get something for a while and then the polarity switches. It’s a huge con. Trump made the mechanism clear – in this, I think he is a timely figure.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 September 2024 source ↗

Giovanna Fletcher