David Hare
Playwright and screenwriter
I don't think you should do the serious stuff, you're not cut out for it.
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
Which book are you ashamed not to have read?
Taste & recommendation
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
A review of Phèdre said – because I was quite large at the time – Toby Stephens’s Hippolytus needs to get on a StairMaster.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 June 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 124 →I was going to a bar with friends and there was a line at the door. I’d been there before and asked the doorman to skip the line. He said, “Oh, I remember you, you were in Almost Famous, weren’t you?” And I said, “Yeah.” And he goes, “Yeah, get back in line.”
I’ll never amount to anything. Who? He was my rival at dance school. It hurt and is something that I’ve always had in the back of my head to defy.
Fran Healy
Scottish musician
“Everyone hates you.” (My manager, a long time ago.)
More from Toby Stephens
View profile →Never ever think that things are going to turn out all right.
There was a very large part of my 20s where I was an alcoholic, and an addict. When I lost my dad to cirrhosis, I knew that the only difference between us was that, tragically, he couldn’t stop whereas I could.
I cry all the time. It’s embarrassing. I mostly cry when my children perform something at school. My wife regularly says, “Do you see any other fathers weeping?” But I can’t stop myself.
I was in a restaurant with my daughter in Los Angeles and I had an accident involving a stomach upset. That was mortifying for both of us.
To be completely alone.
Ulysses – I’ve tried many times and never got through it.
More on failure & regret
- What has been your biggest disappointment? 369 answers
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 205 answers
- Which moment embarrassed you most? 124 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 77 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 39 answers
Also answered this
Bear Grylls, Ed Harris, Meghann Fahy, Fiona Allen, Marcus Mumford, Hamza Yassin
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- All failure & regret questions
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