A ‘sensual eating’ event on the show Altered States in 2018. my own TV series, Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends, who left the hate-spewing Westboro Baptist Church, your missteps as an important part of your journey. But uncovering a family secret has helped him find peaceRead an exclusive extract, With the sex economy booming, Theroux sensitively shadowed three women at its coalface – from a hard-up student to a woman married for 44 years, Ben Berman set out to tell the story of a magician confronting death, but his subject’s disappearing acts and competing documentary crews gave his film a mysterious magic of its own, Behind the scenes with the bewildered Louis Theroux, Nordic noir with a light touch and shocking secrets on a small island, Film-maker says he defended singer’s accusers, driven by his ‘boost’ to Jimmy Savile’s image before sex abuse confirmed, This follow-up film about the supremely intolerant Westboro Baptist church finds plenty to be outraged by, but it also veers into exploitation, This fascinating documentary explores a rare and woefully little known phenomenon of new motherhood – and leads Theroux to interrogate himself, The film-maker is ‘confused’ over how he found the sex abuser likeable and says the experience darkened his view of the world, As he tackles one of his most harrowing subjects yet, the documentary-maker talks about parenting, psychosis – and his secret beard, Heavyweights such as Louis Theroux and Gayle King still allow accused men to share their narratives with vast audiences. Reviews. As I look out, with these eyes, with these thoughts, I don’t notice myself being so very different. They’re not what scares him. When in 1994 Theroux was given a one-off slot on Michael Moore’s TV Nation, his awkward, self-deprecating humour led to the BBC offering him his own programme, ultimately launching his television career. For a while I imagined it might be some kind of self-deconstruction of our processes. audiofilemagazine.com — Journalist and documentarian Louis Theroux's narration of his memoir exudes a stoic charisma that pulls in listeners. Without realising it or intending it, it turns out the films I’ve been involved in making have captured a portrait of a changing culture, an oblique cultural history seen through the eyes of the people I have documented. Short was a “space channel”, meaning he could summon the personality of an entity, called Korton from the planet Koldas, and he would prognosticate in booming tones from an outbuilding at his unassuming house on the outskirts of Cornville, Arizona. Stabbed tongues and swallowed eyeballs: was the Amazing Johnathan's terminal diagnosis his greatest trick? As well as being perhaps the UK's most beloved documentarian, Louis Theroux is also a very well-connected man. When in 1994 Theroux was given a one-off slot on Michael Moore’s TV Nation, his awkward, self-deprecating humour led to the BBC offering him his own programme, ultimately launching his television career. 6 Times Louis Theroux Put Himself In Danger To Get A Story. Making Life on the Edge meant I had a reason to share the surprising developments in stories I had been tracking for years and also to reach out to other contributors I had long been curious to catch up with. But this was a troubling and problematic film, Available for everyone, funded by readers. Would we make four instead of one, the channel asked. A list of Grounded with Louis Theroux episodes and clips related to "The Guardian journalists". Ruby Wax has accused television star Louis Theroux of stealing the concept for his hugely successful television documentaries from her. I was definitely a little bit of a tool, but what was harder to know was whether that was an obstacle or part of my gift.I was watching my old shows back recently not for simple nostalgia – though that would have been a good enough reason given how much has changed – but because I was faced with the more practical question of how to continue doing my job under lockdown. They sprang from a process that begun in 2011 when, stuck for subjects to cover, I made a documentary about dementia, even though I knew that for the first time I would be making a documentary in which no one was making a wrong or questionable choice. 1 review. Why does TV give a pass to men accused of sex crimes? Mainly I was distracted by my appearance, voice and how I came across. If I looked like a plonker before, now I look like an old plonker. Christopher Hooton @christophhooton. Take the best bits from old programmes and link them together somehow using voiceover or maybe an interview with a director. She was having trouble finding work ... legally. Maybe that’s progress. OK. And like that, we went to work on an ambitious career retrospective with the title – dreamed up by me, and only partly because I secretly hoped it evoked subliminal thoughts of David Attenborough – Louis Theroux: Life on the Edge. “An Adam Curtis kind of thing,” we airily said. Plus more of the year’s best pods, Simon Schama returns to the barricades, Louis Theroux chooses his greatest hits, and Sue Perkins brings her warming presence to cold hostilities, The podcaster, comic and radio host has made a career out of his insecurities. The TV equivalent of a greatest hits album. What documentaries were possible that didn’t involve me leaving the house? The first episode of the series, about belief, features an Idaho-based second-amendment diehard with a penchant for apocalyptic conspiracy theories; an elderly man with weird hair who’s in touch with UFOs; a neo-Nazi family; and a Vegas-based self-advertised multimillionaire and get-rich-quick guru. What was more surprising was the way in which some of my older programmes contextualised and maybe explained the Trump phenomenon. The texture of my mind and my thought hasn’t changed. I feel like the same person. Directed by Arthur Cary. The grammar could be figured out at a later stage. The way my hair is piled on top of my head. Theroux's first marriage was to Susanna Kleeman from 1998 to 2001; he later told Sathnam Sanghera of the Financial Times, "What happened was that my girlfriend was living with me in New York. For some reason the BBC had insisted on putting my name in the title. 4 stars out of 5. So we got married, to make it easier for her. It turns out, surprise surprise, the world isn’t like that. Instead we chose four themes that might impose an order on the material: belief, family, crime and the dark side of pleasure. This is true in obvious ways: given that I’ve made several films in jails and prison, and several others that involved immersion in police forces in major cities, it shouldn’t be surprising to look back and see the pre-history to the killing of George Floyd and the reaction to it, and the myriad ways in which they were both predicted and prefigured. Quite quickly, the idea of a retrospective show came up. But I could see that was mostly from my awkwardness at being hired for a job I didn’t fully understand, and my worries about letting people down. They involve people who are in different way vulnerable, struggling and doing the best that can as they battle the vicissitudes of fate. Doc is one of several Theroux has on the way. The idea of Louis Theroux interviewing anybody who is not a Nazi Scientologist Christian fundamentalist paedophile still seems odd to me. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux will be talking about his fascinating life and career with journalist Miranda Sawyer. Megan Phelps-Roper – who left the hate-spewing Westboro Baptist Church, founded by her grandfather Fred Phelps – has become a friend. When Louis Met... is a series of documentary films by Louis Theroux.The series was originally broadcast on BBC Two from 2000–2002. The central conceit was that Theroux, an innocent abroad, would spend time in a community that was considered fringe, and tell us their stories. I first saw him channel back in 1997, for a programme about aliens. But that was the pre-Covid thinking. That was part of how I saw my role, to be the straight man in a weird world, and there were times, looking back, when I see I may have gone too far. He says he doesn’t regret a minute of being in the industry, describing it as an enriching and important part of his life. I’m 50 now. From time to time I saw the younger me as overly pushy and badgering, or in danger of being borderline rude. Louis Theroux Twitter. © 2021 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Louis Theroux in 1999. They feature most in the final episode of our new series, about family. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux will be talking about his fascinating life and career with journalist Miranda Sawyer. Louis Theroux working on 'non-judgemental' Scientology documentary. Later, based on these segments, I landed my own TV series, Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends. These include Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends, When Louis Met…, his BBC2 Specials and a critically acclaimed feature-length documentary entitled My Scientology Movie. He died late last year, but we found some extraordinary footage that shows him, a year or two ago, though enfeebled and poignantly reduced, still channelling his alien friend. The week in TV: The Romantics and Us With Simon Schama; Louis Theroux: Life on the Edge and more – review, Louis Theroux: Life on the Edge review – 25 years of oddball odysseys, TV tonight: Louis Theroux looks back on 25 years of strange encounters, Adam Buxton: ‘I used to think, "Why isn't Dad more proud of me?" Watching some of my early efforts again recently, with the distance of two decades, I couldn’t help passing judgment on the journalistic competence on display – whether I was asking the right questions of the porn performers and the apocalypse preppers. Netflix’s tale of big cats and murder plots has the world gripped. The weirdness of the voices and mannerisms and the outlandishness of Short’s claims couldn’t help coming across as funny. With (from left) Noah, Margie and Fred Phelps in 2007. Sometimes I caught myself enjoying the raw, unvarnished reality and marvelling at how much we had managed to capture on tape. Louis Theroux. Louis Theroux: The Night in Question review – an incendiary look at campus rape. Eventbrite - The Guardian Live presents In conversation with Louis Theroux - Monday, 13 July 2020 - Find event and ticket information. Boiling down more than 50 hours of TV – not to mention the hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours of raw footage – turned out to be about as hard as you might expect. America's Most Dangerous Pets (2011) ... Seen on Sky News; featured in The Guardian, NY Times, The Independent and more. These themes, while they were come by in a spirit of pragmatism, ended up giving us a coherence and cumulative logic that ended up being one of the greatest and most pleasurable discoveries of the whole process. Quite quickly, the idea of a retrospective show came up. Louis Theroux’s first series for television, in 1998, was a series of documentaries called Weird Weekends. Of the various updates, one of the most moving for me, personally, was one I did about the aforementioned UFO believer with weird hair: the Rev Robert Short. Doing the work of documentary-presenting about people and worlds that are in different ways on the edge has left its marks on me, too. When I started out in 1994, it would have seemed ludicrous to imagine having the maturity, sensitivity and storytelling chops to make programmes about disability, mental health and addiction. Documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux doesn't often speak about his Hollywood actor cousin Justin, but made a rare exception on Tuesday night. I also spoke with JJ, the porn performer from Weird Weekends. — The Guardian. Louis Theroux (s.20. The producer in shot. Speaking over the phone, the 48-year-old is charming and thoughtful, yet he also gives answers that, by and large, only scratch the surface. Making my programmes has been among other things, a reminder – were it needed – of how unfair life is, how hard many people have it and how much they have to overcome. The Guardian - Back to home. They discuss their professional rivalry and how Jon is handling the lockdown. t is a strange feeling looking back at a much earlier version of yourself on television, a queasy mixture of recognition and distance, approval and shame, and above all an inescapable question: who is this plonker? Support The Guardian Available for everyone, funded by readers ... Louis Theroux: Life on the Edge and more – review. Ben East. But so has 25 years of living, marrying, having children, moving countries, taking out the rubbish, loading and unloading the dishwasher, fighting with those close to me, failing in small duties, succeeding in others and performing the multitude of rituals that make up the bulk of what it is we call life. In light of numerous allegations of abuse and sexual violence against the late Sir Jimmy Savile, Louis Theroux re-examines his media relationship with the enigmatic public figure. Louis Theroux is an award-winning British-American filmmaker, journalist and broadcaster. With Louis Theroux, Jimmy Savile, Kat Ward, Jonathan Ross. During an … But I am a TV maker. Louis Theroux has responded to Tiger King star Joe Exotic’s allegations that his rival Carole Baskin fed her husband to the tigers.. It was something we had thought about doing for a while – 2019 marked 25 years since I had started my career in television – but we never got round to it. I suppose this ability to see a contributor in a new, more three-dimensional way brings up the question of changes in me. But it was a trip to Dundee 20 years ago that turned out to be just as strange for the BBC documentary-maker when the magic powers of … This is wrong, dangerous – and gets us nowhere in a broken world, Theroux is, as ever, compelling in this exploration of sexual assault on US college campuses. As he revisits his career in a new four-part series, TV’s top documentarian looks back at his evolution from accosting cult members to making films on eating disorders and dementia, Last modified on Wed 26 Aug 2020 09.45 EDT. Tuesday 11 February 2014 09:47. Bespectacled, gawky, socially awkward and only 23 years old, I had been a surprising choice as a correspondent on Michael Moore’s TV Nation, a US network show where I stumbled around the wilds of America meeting extremists of various stripes: klansmen, cult members, sexual adventurers. Bespectacled, gawky, socially awkward and only 23 years old, I had been a surprising choice as a correspondent on Michael Moore’s TV Nation, a US network show where I stumbled around the wilds of America meeting extremists of various stripes: klansmen, cult members, sexual adventurers. Score pending. What you might think would be self-destructive, can sometimes end up being lifesaving. A repeat broadcast will be shown on September 10 at the same time. Louis Theroux is a master at this. Louis Theroux: my adventure in the court of the Tiger King. All rights reserved. List of books recommended by Louis Theroux. ... Louis Theroux’s memoir is exactly how you’d expect an account of his “life and strange times in television” to be; self-deprecating, eager to please and shot through with a sense of bewilderment. We never really considered ourselves married in the full sense – there were no wedding photos or anything like that. There's his father, novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux, and his … It is a strange feeling looking back at a much earlier version of yourself on television, a queasy mixture of recognition and distance, approval and shame, and above all an inescapable question: who is this plonker? His career trajectory is compelling. Sometimes I stay in email contact with old subjects, or my team check in with them. The documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux is currently in the nation to sustain himself, his newest work, and, it would seem, the persistent idea we Australians have that … “Show the bits you never see. The success of that episode, and the pleasure of making it, led to other documentaries about families and relationships under stress from forces outside their control. You have to wrap your arms around the whole of life, and – at the risk of sounding like my Las Vegas self-help guru friend – view your missteps as an important part of your journey.And it may be my mistakes – or at least the challenges I endured in order to change – that, looking back, I’m most attached to, because they suggested the possibility of doing things differently. When I look at my own motivations and my own journey, I am forced to face the negative alongside the positive: a tendency, when younger, to maybe be glib, to disarm with the aim of making light of people’s deeply held beliefs, to act the clown, to make fun. Yet these are the themes that have dominated my most recent programmes – subjects such as eating disorders, dementia and brain injury. When the world shut down in March, a series of programmes I was working on was suddenly no longer feasible due to travel restrictions. I had a team ready to work but no projects. In brief: Gotta Get Theroux This; Little Siberia; Impossible Causes – review, Louis Theroux: I backed accusers of Michael Jackson due to my time with Savile, Louis Theroux: Surviving America’s Most Hated Family review – a deeply uncomfortable watch, Shows like Jeremy Kyle should respect the privacy of those in crisis, Mothers on the Edge review – Louis Theroux, more perturbed than ever before, ‘I liked Jimmy Savile,’ admits Louis Theroux on Desert Island Discs, Louis Theroux: 'I worried I might be mansplaining motherhood'. Programmes we never made.” This idea quickly evaporated in the heat of having to make a documentary that featured material viewers might actually want to see and that made some kind of sense. We went down a YouTube rabbit hole, Alan Partridge made a triumphant return and a singular look at cold war espionage came with an irresistible earworm. Louis Theroux filmed its star in 2011 and saw the madness for himself. It is mainly when I see myself on screen that I see the change. Louis Theroux: Selling Sex review – employment, empowerment or exploitation? I also acknowledge my own sense of attraction to the dark side – the darkness of misguided beliefs and self-destructive behaviours. He is best known for his documentaries that investigate fascinating worlds and lifestyles. In the series, Theroux accompanied a different British celebrity in each programme as they went about their day-to-day business, interviewing them about their lives and experiences as he did so. To an almost morbid extent, I circle around stories after completing them – I find it hard to let go and move on. I thought I looked quite roguish’, 'I was definitely a bit of a tool': Louis Theroux on 25 years of documentary-making, On my radar: Tim Burgess's cultural highlights, I watched nothing but Louis Theroux films for a whole, weird weekend – and here's what I learned. After 25-plus years of doing my job, what strikes me is the development and evolution that has taken place. But he was’, Louis Theroux on his favourite outfit: ‘This was a wool-cotton blend. Louis Theroux Shares A Heartwarming Update On Joe From 'Drinking To Oblivion' Entertainment Huffington Post. So explains Louis Theroux as a prelude to his latest documentary, Selling Sex (BBC Two). 4. It’s a film that is, more than any of the others, about love. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux will be talking about his fascinating life and career with journalist Miranda Sawyer. It’s almost as though he’s beaming to me from beyond the grave, and so, in a short space in the film we go from finding him amusing and maybe even ridiculous, to seeing him in a way that is wistful and rather moving. Phelps-Roper – who left the hate-spewing Westboro Baptist Church, founded by her grandfather Fred Phelps in 2007 become! 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