Now. During the period of Covid, I have had the opportunity to rethink and I’ve got a new gift of cherishing now.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 September 2020 source ↗
The question
What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Now. During the period of Covid, I have had the opportunity to rethink and I’ve got a new gift of cherishing now.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 September 2020 source ↗
When my kids were born.
When my son, Jimmy, was two and I was just pottering about with him.
Before kids, when I was 13 or so, on the back of my horse, running at full speed in an open pasture. Post kids, happiness happens often, but in more subtle ways. I now prefer the word “content”.
Swimming in the North Sea at midnight, surrounded by phosphorescence.
I spend most money on my garden.
My vain side would like to be remembered as someone who did good for others in some way. But I would be happy if my children remembered me.
Warm and bubbly.
Acting, when you don’t want to do it or you disagree with everything, is almost like having sex with someone you don’t like. I had one experience like that on stage, in a terrible version of The Cherry Orchard. I put on a wig, dark-coloured contacts and just hoped no one would recognise me.
When I had a bicycle accident when I was 24. I was on a bridge going down; the bicycle broke and I smashed to the ground, face first. I broke my jaw and my teeth, and had to have plastic surgery. It all took half a year and then, funnily enough, I got my first big job – a TV series – with what I thought of then as this big, ugly scar.
Marianne Faithfull, Joss Whedon, Imelda Staunton, Lesley Sharp, Helen George, Ethan Hawke
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