Louis Theroux | |
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 Theroux in 2018 | |
| Born | Louis Sebastian Theroux (1970-05-20)20 May 1970 (age 55) |
| Citizenship |
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| Education | Westminster School |
| Alma mater | Magdalen College, Oxford |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1992–present |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 3 |
| Father | Paul Theroux |
| Relatives |
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| Website | louistheroux.com |
Louis Sebastian Theroux (LOO-ee thə-ROO;[1] born 20 May 1970) is a British and American documentarian, journalist, broadcaster, and author. He has received threeBritish Academy Television Awards and aRoyal Television Society Television Award.
After graduating fromMagdalen College, Oxford, Theroux moved to the United States and worked as a journalist forMetro Silicon Valley andSpy. He moved into television as the presenter of offbeat segments onMichael Moore'sTV Nation series.
Theroux is known forhis numerous documentaries with the BBC, beginning withLouis Theroux's Weird Weekends (1998–2000), followed byWhen Louis Met... (2000–2002) and 50BBC Two specials (2003–present). His work includes studies of unusual and taboo subcultures, crime and the justice system, and celebrities. The majority of his documentaries are set in the United States, but he has also studied cultures inSouth Africa,Israel,Nigeria, and theUK.The New Yorker described Theroux's work as "a piercingly humane, slyly funny guide through the funkier passages ofAmerican culture".[2]
Louis Sebastian Theroux was born inSingapore on 20 May 1970;[3] he is the son of English mother Anne (née Castle)[4] and American fatherPaul Theroux, a noted travel writer and novelist.[5][6] His paternal grandmother, Anne Dittami, was an Italian-American grammar school teacher, while his paternal grandfather, Albert Eugène Theroux, was a French-Canadian salesman[7][8] for the American Leather Oak company.[9] Theroux holds dual British and American citizenship.[10] He is the nephew of novelistAlexander Theroux and writerPeter Theroux. His older brother,Marcel, is a writer and television presenter.[11] His cousin,Justin, is an actor and screenwriter.[12]
Theroux moved with his family to England when he was one year old; he was raised in theCatford district of south London.[13][14] He went from primary school toTower House School inEast Sheen in 1979 or 1980 and then toWestminster School, apublic school within the precincts ofWestminster Abbey. There, he befriended comediansAdam Buxton andJoe Cornish,[15] and futureLiberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime MinisterNick Clegg, with whom he travelled to America.[16] He also performed in a number of school theatre productions includingBugsy Malone as Looney Bergonzi,Ritual for Dolls as the Army Officer, andThe Splendour Falls as the Minstrel.[17] He read Modern History atMagdalen College, Oxford (1988–1991), graduating withfirst-class honours.[18]
Theroux's first employment as a journalist was in the United States withMetro Silicon Valley,[19][20] an alternative free weekly newspaper inSan Jose, California.[21] In 1992, he was hired as a writer for the satirical monthly magazineSpy. He also worked as a correspondent onMichael Moore'sTV Nation series,[10] for which he provided segments on offbeat cultural subjects, including sellingAvon to women in theAmazon rainforest, theJerusalem syndrome, and attempts by theKu Klux Klan to rebrand itself as a civil rights group for white people.[citation needed]
WhenTV Nation ended, Theroux signed a development deal with theBBC, where he developedLouis Theroux's Weird Weekends. He has written for a number of publications, includingHip Hop Connection andThe Idler.[22]
InWeird Weekends (1998–2000), Theroux followed marginal (mostly American) subcultures such assurvivalists,black nationalists,white supremacists, andporn stars, often by living among or close to the people who were involved in them. His documentary method subtly exposes the contradictions or farcical elements of his subjects' seriously held beliefs. He described the aim of Weird Weekends as:
Setting out to discover the genuinely odd in the most ordinary setting. To me, it's almost a privilege to be welcomed into these communities and to shine a light on them and, maybe, through my enthusiasm, to get people to reveal more of themselves than they may have intended. The show is laughing at me, adrift in their world, as much as at them. I don't have to play up that stuff. I'm not a matinee idol disguised as a nerd.
In the seriesWhen Louis Met... (2000–02), Theroux accompanied a different British celebrity in each programme in their daily lives, interviewing them as they go. His episode about British entertainerJimmy Savile, entitledWhen Louis Met Jimmy,[23] was voted one of the top documentaries of all time in a 2005 survey by Britain'sChannel 4.[24] Some years after the episode was filmed, theNSPCC described Savile as "one of the most prolific sex offenders" in Great Britain.[25]
In an interview in 2015, Theroux expressed his intention to produce a follow-up documentary about Savile for the BBC to explore how the late entertainer had continued his abuse for so long, to meet people he knew closely, and examine his own reflections on his inability to dig more deeply into the first case.[26] This follow-up documentary, titledSavile, aired on BBC Two on Sunday, 2 October 2016, and lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes.[27]
InWhen Louis Met the Hamiltons, the formerConservativeMPNeil Hamilton and his wifeChristine were arrested during the course of filming, due to false allegations of indecent assault.
InWhen Louis Met Max Clifford,Max Clifford tried to set up Theroux, but he was caught lying as the crew recorded his live microphone during the conversations.
After this series concluded, a retrospective calledLife with Louis was released. Theroux made a documentary calledLouis, Martin & Michael about his quest to get an interview withMichael Jackson to which he lost out toMartin Bashir who went on to make the documentaryLiving With Michael Jackson. Selected episodes ofWhen Louis Met... were included as bonus content on a Best-Of collection ofWeird Weekends.
In these special programmes, beginning in 2003, Theroux returned to American themes, working at feature-length and in a more natural way. In March 2006, he signed a new deal with the BBC to make 10 films over the course of three years.[28] Subjects for the specials include criminal gangs inLagos,Neo-Nazis in America,ultra-Zionists in Israel. He also exploreschild psychiatry, and the prison systems in California and Florida. A 2007 special,The Most Hated Family in America, received strong critical praise from the international media.
In October 2016, Theroux premiered afeature-length documentary,My Scientology Movie. Produced bySimon Chinn—a school friend of Theroux's—and directed by John Dower, the film covers Theroux attempting to gain access to the secretiveChurch of Scientology. It premiered at theLondon Film Festival in 2015 and was released in cinemas in the UK on 7 October 2016.[29]
Forbidden America is a three-part series focusing on social media use in the United States among several groups, including thealt-right, rappers and pornographic film actors. On theExtreme and Online, Louis meets the latest incarnation of the American far right: a political movement born out of the internet and increasingly making its presence felt on the political stage. Theroux interviewsNick Fuentes andBaked Alaska.[30]
In 2022, the BBC announced a series of interviews conducted by Theroux under the titleLouis Theroux Interviews, in which he meets and talks to celebrities from stage, screen and music about their successful careers and their personal lives.[31] The first series started airing weekly on BBC Two on 25 October 2022 and features interviews from rapperStormzy, actressDame Judi Dench, musicianYUNGBLUD, adventurerBear Grylls, comedianKatherine Ryan and singerRita Ora. The second series ofLouis Theroux Interviews started airing on 7 November 2023 and includes interviews from boxerAnthony Joshua, musicianPete Doherty, actressJoan Collins, singerRaye, activistChelsea Manning and actorAshley Walters.[32][33]
Theroux spends time with the growing community of Israeli religious-nationalist settlers. Their settlements are illegal under international law, and they have been protected by the army, the police and the Israeli government.
Since the start of theGaza war there has been an acceleration in the establishment of settlements. The documentary explores the lives of both prominent settlers and Palestinian activists against a rise in violence against local Palestinian communities and theOctober 2023 attack byHamas.[34]
Theroux published his first book,The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures, in Britain in 2005. In it, he recounts his return to the United States to learn about the lives of some of the people he had featured in his television programmes.[35]
Theroux released a memoir,Gotta Get Theroux This, in September 2019.[11] He released his third book,Theroux the Keyhole, a diary recorded during the UKCOVID-19 lockdowns, in November 2021.[36]
In April 2020, during aCOVID-19 lockdown, Theroux started theBBC Radio 4 podcastGrounded with Louis Theroux from his home, in which he interviews well-known people he finds particularly fascinating and to whom he would not necessarily have had a chance to speak before theCOVID-19 pandemic.[37]
Beginning on 6 June 2023, he started hostingThe Louis Theroux Podcast as part of an exclusive deal withSpotify.[38]
Theroux makes a few appearances onThe Adam and Joe Show DVD and has been a guest many times onAdam & Joe's radio shows,[citation needed] as well as onThe Adam Buxton Podcast.[39]
As part of theWeird Weekends episode "Porn", Theroux agreed to film a cameo in the 1997gay pornography filmTake a Peak.[40] He did not perform sexual acts in the film, but made a brief appearance as a park ranger in search of a criminal. In theWeird Weekends episode "Infomercials", he featured as a live salesman for an at-home paper shredder for theHome Shopping Network.[41]
In December 2015, Theroux captained the team representingMagdalen College, Oxford onBBC Four'sChristmas University Challenge. In their first-round match, the team beat theUniversity of Exeter's team by 220 to 130 and went on to win the tournament.[42]
In April 2022, Theroux wentviral after a clip of him on theYouTube showChicken Shop Date—in which he performed a short rap he had originally written and performed in theWeird Weekends episode "Gangsta Rap" 22 years earlier—wasautotuned by aTikTok user and turned into a reusable audio track with backing music.[43] The trend saw users lip-syncing to the sound and performing an accompanying dance. It has led to more footage of Theroux's rapping ability being unearthed, leading the BBC to publish an article listing seven times he "proved he was a massivehip hop head".[44] In May, Theroux released "Jiggle Jiggle", a full version of the rap which he created alongsideManchester DJ duo Duke & Jones.[45]
Theroux's first marriage was to Susanna Kleeman until they divorced in 2002;[46] he later toldSathnam Sanghera of theFinancial Times, "What happened was that my girlfriend was living with me inNew York. She was having trouble finding work ... legally. So we got married, to make it easier for her. We never really considered ourselves married in the full sense – there were no wedding photos or anything like that. It was really amarriage of convenience."[47]
Theroux married his long-time girlfriend, Nancy Strang, on 13 July 2012.[48] They have three sons together.[11] In a 2012 masterclass, he spoke of the challenges of combining family life with the need to work on projects.[49] They lived in theHarlesden area ofLondon[10][11] until temporarily moving toLos Angeles in early 2013, allowing him more time to focus on hisLA Stories series.[50] In 2017, they relocated to Los Angeles.[51] Theroux and his family spent COVID-19 lockdowns at their home in North-West London.[52][53][54]
Theroux is anatheist.[55] He dabbled withcannabis at 17[56] and later said that, while he acknowledges that cannabis is an intoxicant and can trigger certain mental health issues, he supportsits legalisation.[57][58] He has also revealed that he has afear of flying.[59] In 2023, he announced that he suffers fromalopecia that has caused facial hair loss.[60]
In 2018, Theroux'sTwitter account was hacked bycybersecurity firm Insinia as part of their attempt to highlight a longstanding security flaw in Twitter's system.[61]
Theroux is a supporter of West London football clubQueens Park Rangers.[62]
| Category | Show | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Richard Dimbleby Award for the Best Presenter (Factual, Features and News) | When Louis Met... | Won |
| Flaherty Documentary Award (TV) | When Louis Met... The Hamiltons | Nominated | |
| 2001 | Richard Dimbleby Award for the Best Presenter (Factual, Features and News) | Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends | Won |
| Year | Category | Show | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Outstanding Informational Series | TV Nation | Nominated |
| Year | Category | Show | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Best Presenter | A Place for Paedophiles | Won |
| 2002 | Best Presenter | When Louis Met... | Nominated |
After leaving university in 1991, Theroux, who has dual British and US citizenship, decided to go to America
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