British actress
Not making a movie with Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2009
The 2000s
Commencement addresses and long-form print, mostly — the forms that survived into the archive.
24 people · 528 answers
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
American composer
I don't know. I was lucky; I was able to study with the people I wanted to, be friends with the people I wanted to and in the end I've been able to make a living the way I wanted to.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2008
English media personality and sex offender
Never having been a 100% sex symbol. I only managed 99.9%.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2007
English rapper
Realising that success wasn't going to keep me happy all my life.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2009
English actress
The England football team - they never fail to disappoint.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2008
British comedian, actor and television presenter
Too many of my friends, family and peers dying.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2009
What is the worst job you have done?
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's long-running Q&A repeatedly asks this standing question, with minor tense variation.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
English rapper
Cleaning toilets in a motorway service station.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2009
American actress and former model
A movie called The Return that was about cows from outer space.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2008
English actor
Several: cutting the local vicar's lawn, shovelling shit from a stable, waiting tables, picking up and washing actors' smelly pants and socks.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2008
American filmmaker
I worked in a unisex clothes store for three days. Girls would say, 'Do I look fat in this?' I'd say, 'Yes.' I was fired.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2008
English model
Shooting hosiery on top of an iceberg and getting my backside stuck to it.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2008
What problem are you still trying to solve?
Originally asked
Lifehacker, to people about their working day, How I Work
Lifehacker repeatedly used this exact closing prompt in its named How I Work questionnaire.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
U.S. Representative from Georgia, 1987–2020; Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 1963–1966
There are many battles. There’s so much that needs to be done. We need to protect the environment. Save this little planet.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2004
Stem cell biologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 2012
we can select one gene out of those 20,000 genes, and completely destroy that one particular gene so that we can understand the function of that particular gene.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2008
Developmental biologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 1995
we know the fish, we know the worm, we know the fly, but we don’t know the links between and we don’t know, when we go back to the branches in evolution, we really don’t know what happened…
Recorded · Nobel Prize Outreach · 2003
Everyone here · A–Z
Alison Steadman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charles Dance, Charlie Munger, Chris Hoy, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Cybill Shepherd, David Hasselhoff, Derek Sivers, Desmond Tutu, Ed Harris, Erin O'Connor, John Lewis, John Waters, Joseph Fiennes, Julie Andrews, Mario Molina, Mellody Hobson, Mike Skinner, Mohamed ElBaradei, Oliver Sacks, Robert Carlyle, Shinya Yamanaka, Steve Jobs