The question
What do you fear most?Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
The exact prompt is fixed in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire and independently sustained in The Guardian's The Q&A over multiple decades.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Getting to the end and thinking that I haven’t laughed enough.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 January 2026 source ↗
Falling onstage…or anywhere.
Not enough food in the fridge.
When I see older generations struggling with technology, I am afraid of it moving so quickly that I can’t use it.
Losing my family. And fear that the world won't become a better place.
Jealousy. It’s the thief of joy.
Losing my eyesight – I live for the view, and the sunset and the sunrise.
To Gorka Márquez, who was my Strictly partner, for not winning the glitterball in 2022.
Chaotic, warm, northern.
More sleep – my children do not sleep.
As someone who made you think that anything’s possible. I did three marathons in a day once but walking the high-wire at Battersea Park station was the challenge I loved most because I had to master a skill.
Joyce Carol Oates, Marcus Brigstocke, Charles Dance, Indira Varma, Rosalind Eleazar, Neil Patrick Harris
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