197 answers answered between 1930 and 2026 one of 25 in The Q&A
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.
As a child, Munro was constantly telling herself stories. One of the first was “The Little Mermaid,” by Hans Christian Anderson, whose ending she couldn’t bear.
Huckleberry Finn.
I always wanted to be a singer, but I also wanted to be a doctor. I almost got there: I did four years and got my neuroscience BSc.
A jazz drummer.
A teacher. Teachers can change lives.
Golfer, priest, police officer, teacher and, after going to the movies, actor.
To be able to play the piano like Artur Schnabel.
A writer. Always.
A stuntman. Evel Knievel was an icon.
A spy, a witch and a nun.
When I was a child, it was a bus driver or engine driver; then, when I was a teenager, I went to the theatre and wanted to be an actor.
Genuinely, the host of Radio 1’s Breakfast Show.
For a while I wanted to be a policewoman, but I didn’t have five O-levels.
At three, I knew I was too tall to be a ballerina, so that wasn’t going to happen.
In 1975, I watched the film Stardust, and Adam Faith said, “I supply the birds, the pills and the pot.” And I thought, “I want that.”
A librarian. Or a racing driver for Ferrari F1.
I just wanted to work in music. I didn’t want a real job.
An astronaut, a writer, a dancer.
An artist travelling and playing with the Stones.
I did want to be an actor from an early age although I briefly dabbled with the idea of being a vet until I realised you had to stick your hand up a cow’s arse.