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Louis Theroux
A slightly baffled expression and a line in faux-naive questions has stood Louis Theroux in good stead as he has built a tv career on hanging out with some of life's more extreme characters.
From evangelists to neo-nazis, swingers to gangsta rappers and porn stars to game-hunters, Louis has befriended them all and explored their worlds leaving many viewers wondering how on earth he got away with it.
Brought up in the UK, he began his journalism career in America and got his big break as a correspondent on Michael Moore's TV Nation where his first job was to interview a group of people who believed the end of the world was coming. Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends found him hanging out with people from American subcultures while in When Louis Met...he immersed himself in the lives of British celebrities. His recent series of specials has covered a diverse range of subjects from San Quentin prison to mums who medicate their kids.
- Never one to shy away from really trying to get to grips with his subject matter, Louis got a role in a gay porn film as a park ranger for one documentary and underwent liposuction in another.
- He was once forced by professional wrestlers to train until he vomited.
- He is the son of renowned travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux.
- He is very academically bright. Brought up in the UK, he went to Oxford University where he got a first in history.
- Despite his success, people who know him say he is "shy" and "curious and always sort of in the background". He was a quiet child and Louis himself says he recalls being "very self-conscious, always more comfortable round people with extravagant opinions because I was able to slipstream behind them."
- While many people from TV critics to some of the subjects of his documentaries claim his innocent, naive approach is just a way of manipulating his subjects he says "I think I'm actually a bit more guileless than people give me credit for".
- When he was making a documentary about former British MP Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine he was worried that it was a bit slow. Then they were accused of having taken part in an orgy and it became one of his greatest triumphs.
- At the beginning of his career he often stayed in touch with his subjects but later came to realise that there was no expectation that he would. "There's a lot more transparency in the transaction of being a journalist than I realised to begin with."
- Although his documentaries cover an eclectic mix of subjects, there is one common thread, they all investigate people whose self-image is at odds with their public image.
- His recent work has seen him move into darker territory – it no longer has to be funny, as long as it is interesting.
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