Ed Harris
American actor and director
Asking my wife questions that don't need to be asked.
Identity & self
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
243 answers answered between 1995 and 2026 one of 25 in The Q&A
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.
On the record
Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.
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Cybill Shepherd
American actress and former model
Acting like the good little girl.
David Hasselhoff
American actor, singer, and television personality
Holding a grudge.
Barack Obama
44th President of the United States, 2009–2017; United States Senator from Illinois 2005–2008
Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. I had a tendency sometimes to make excuses for me not doing the right thing.
Recorded
Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia, The White House (Obama administration archive), 19 May 2013
source ↗
Willem Dafoe
Actor
Punctuality (outside of work, of course).
Helena Bonham Carter
Actor
My distractibility, diminishing memory, and capacity for sustained concentration. My English master once said I had the brain of a butterfly. I feel that 40 years later, I’ve evolved into Dory from Finding Nemo.
Angela Hartnett
English chef
Procrastination.
Julian Lennon
English musician, photographer, and philanthropist
Fear, anxiety and panic attacks.
Courtney Pine
British jazz musician
I am not studious enough. I get easily distracted.
Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen
English interior designer and television personality
I am crucified by my modesty: it’s terrible.
Tim Peake
British Army Air Corps officer and astronaut
Shyness. It really held me back when I was younger, and I wish it hadn’t. I do a better job of not being so shy these days.
Fay Ripley
English actress, television presenter, cookbook author
Being judgmental.
Edward Enninful
Ghanaian-born English editor and stylist
Impatience. Though sometimes it helps!
Sofia Coppola
American filmmaker and actress
Being hard on myself. I don’t want to pass that on to my daughters, so I’m trying to stop.
Sharon Corr
Musical artist
Procrastination.
Audra McDonald
Singer and actor
If hoarding and procrastination were Olympic sports, I’d have at least 70 gold medals.
My problem with clothes. I’ve got an issue, haven’t I? I’m not a fella in a band who can turn up in his T-shirt and jeans. I’ve got the whole drama of what I’m going to wear: the hair, the makeup. All that preening and pruning that adds to the stress. I have begun to hate that perfectionist in me.
Believing in, even admiring, people who refuse to believe in me, and not believing people who do.
Procrastination.
I try too hard not to get things wrong.
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