Maxi-multitasking.
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's The Q&A has retained this Proust-derived prompt from at least 2007 through 2026, and ABC independently put it to the Obamas in 2011.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I find it difficult to sit still.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 November 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 243 →
Angela Hartnett
English chef
Procrastination.
Gayle King
Broadcaster
I’m disorganized.
I overthink everything.
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.
In 2016, the moment my agent rang me to tell me I’d got the part of Hamlet for the RSC. While I was on the phone, I looked to my left and turned to the right, and a bus whizzed by and the wing mirror was so close to me that it knocked my hat off.
To find as many moments to laugh as possible.
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 would really love to know my parents as an adult. I lost my dad when I was 14 and my mum when I was 20.
More on identity & self
Also answered this
Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Matthew Modine, Cybill Shepherd, Jack Whitehall, Romesh Ranganathan, Alison Steadman
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