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When Louis Theroux meets TV Tonight

TV Tonight has a rare chat with the BBC's Louis Theroux about his weird and wonderful subjects, the Murdoch scandal and possible ideas for an Australian documentary.

He’s tackled everything from the Jackson family to Neo-Nazis, porn stars, paedophiles, white supremacists, prisoners, religious extremists, disgraced politicians, brothel madams, gangsta rappers and TV evangelists.

When it comes to volatile subjects, BBC broadcaster Louis Theroux is fearless. He Puts himself in danger, even going under the knife for a story on plastic surgery.

Now one of television’s most intrepid journalists tells TV Tonight his style is marked by the weird and wonderful.

“What it comes down to is my attempt to get to know people who are engaged in behaviour or are involved in a world which is in some ways questionable, controversial or perhaps even wrong,” he says.

“I’m trying to show the human side of weirdness or showing something that most right-thinking people would view as suspect behaviour.

“Neo Nazis in America, criminals, the practice of medicating kids with psychotropic medication in America –they’re all things that at first glance you would be suspicious of or have questions about. Then I tend to show how the people involved are human beings, and try to understand their human motivation.”

Theroux was born in Singapore, the son of US travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux and Brit Anne Castle. Raised in the UK, he holds a dual citizenship with the USA. Much of his documentary work for the BBC has been filmed in the US.

“For some reason it seems to work quite well in America, which I think is partly because of different cultural norms in America, compared with Britain or maybe Australia,” he says.

“I think I may be a less-threatening figure as a British journalist in America.”

His documentaries are renowned for the candid conversations with interviewees, many of whom seem to give him extraordinary access. But Theroux attributes his team for establishing a trust with potentially prickly subjects.

“I wish I could take credit for that. I have a great team around me and the team of directors, producers, executive producers over the years has changed, but it’s so important that I have good collaborators,” he explains.

“People sometimes say ‘You’re bumbling’ or they think it’s an act. ‘How can he be so bumbling and get where he is?’ in terms of the access. But there is a smoother side to the operation. The series producer or director will go in sometimes months or even years ahead, and begin negotiating access.

“We did one about a maximum security mental hospital with paedophiles who have done their prison terms and were sent there if they were considered deranged by psychiatrists. It took a couple of years of conversations before we figured out how we would do it.

“They’re not interviews in the traditional sense, they’re more conversations. You want to get to the truth but you’re more likely to get it from someone who likes you and trusts you a little bit, than someone who you feel has an agenda or is just out to get you.”

Theroux spends time with his subjects to gain their trust and strives to work against the presence of a camera.

“We use a small camera and a small crew. We also shoot a lot, and we ease into situations, rather than staging formal interviews. The encounters are often driven by actuality. So our production techniques work to create a sense of un-self-consciousness. Of course there is still a kind of performance that goes on, but part of what drives the shows is my mission to uncover the performance and get to the real people underneath.”

One of his most famous documentaries was meeting Rev. Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas. Ferociously homophobic and picketing the funerals of dead US soldiers, they were branded “The Most Hated Family in America.” In the second of his two new specials airing on BBC Knowledge, Theroux returns to Kansas.

But does he fear he is furthering their hatred by giving them media attention? Theroux says, ironically, he has mixed feeling about being part of their own ‘apocalyptic scenario.’

“As I understand it for Jesus to come back as he eminently will, if you believe them, they need to have gotten the message out to as many people as possible so that they will have heard the message and then rejected it. Only a tiny remnant will hear the gospel and then obey the law,” he explains.

“That documentary went global and they got feedback from people all over the world so they found it tremendously validating.

“Notwithstanding that I’m coming from a different point of view and I’m very critical of what they do, I think they felt we’d done more or less a fair job and we hadn’t distorted anything. I don’t want to speak for them, maybe I’m imagining it, but they certainly were friendly enough afterwards. So when we went back and talked about doing a follow up, they were up for it.”

Despite Westboro’s media experience and ability to manipulate, Theroux is confident he is able to deliver a documentary with insight. For him this outweighs doubts that he could be furthering their extreme dause.

“The Phelps family do try and control what you see, and I think they kind of brief each other and have meetings about what they should say and do, but at the same time they always give us enough access. We see enough that I’m confident we’re able to tell the truth about it. So I think you’d have to be pretty far gone to think ‘The Phelps are right and I should be out picketing soldiers’ funerals,'” he says.

Often in his documentaries he will give his subject enough rope to hang themselves, but there can be other approaches to a subject that result in equally intriguing interviews.

“Sometimes it’s a case of asking a question and stepping back and the answer may be very revealing and other times it’s a more combative encounter. Sometimes someone can come up with something new that’s very disarming and occasionally I actually get my mind changed a bit,” Theroux says.

“Even in the ones where you don’t agree with what they’re doing you can see a revealing human moment.

“In Return to the Most Hated Family the guys in the cult are coming out with hateful things that you actually feel sorry for them.

He spoke to one father whose daughter had left the Church since the last documentary, and he struggled with her absence despite it being at odds with the Phelps doctrine.

“The dad is absolutely broken up about it yet he’s having to stick to the script about ‘She was a hell-bound sinner and it’s good that she left and I really don’t mind that I’ll never see her again.’ But you think ‘You poor guy. You’ve brainwashed yourself into living in this prison of your own creation.’”

The first new documentary, to air this Sunday, sees him meeting a very committed subculture of ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers in the occupied territories in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

But what subject would he most like to tackle? UK journalism and the Murdoch hacking scandal? Absolutely.

“The Murdoch family is a great example of ‘Would you get the access?’ Maybe there’s someone in there who would give it to you but in the end these documentaries are about me being with people. In the end I would have to ask myself ‘Who am I going to be with?’ I don’t think Rupert’s going to agree to it,” he says.

He would even consider an Australian documentary if the topic was right.

“My girlfriend is a big fan of Australia and she’s often on the lookout for stories and she would like to go back there,” he says.

“It’s a little grim but I’m sure there is a story to do with the Aboriginal community and the de facto segregation that exists. But I’m not quite sure how you tell that story in a fresh and interesting way, in a non-depressing way. But maybe there is a way.

“There is a huge appetite for Australian stories over here. There’s a huge fascination with the Australian lifestyle.”

Louis Theroux: Ultra Zionists airs 8:30pm Sunday August 7th on BBC Knowledge and a week later will be followed by Return to America’s Most Hated Family.

20 Responses

  1. i vowed never to watch this man ever again after the appalling way he treated Jimmy Saville in the completely unneccesary expose on him. This 70’s UK TV star hadn’t done anything to deserve this.

  2. Two of my favourite things collide. Great interview. I always await Louis Theroux’s documentaries and have had immense enjoyment out of his previous work. There really is nothing quite like what he does. From Weird Weekends to the BBC2 Specials, he covers every taboo topic and the like that can be reasonably covered. I can’t wait for more from Louis and TV Tonight alike.

  3. Louis is fantastic, so disarming when he asks the questions that his audience would love to ask. One of the best moments was when he was interviewing a bunch of white supremists and had spent quite a while with them and they had been spewing this anti-semitic stuff (as they do) and Louis suggested that he could be jewish. the look on their faces priceless. Great interview david well done. Louis for PM!!

  4. Excellent interview David.

    I love Louis too, I highly recommend his book ‘The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures’ which is a companion book to the Weird Weekends series.

    @ryaneco – Ch 7 was repeating a couple of the old ones a few weeks ago. Don’t think ABC2 have the rights.

  5. Yeah, love Louis. Great interview and write-up, David, and congrats on grabbing him. Two years to score this? – Louis himself would be proud!

  6. Top work David. One of few interesting people on TV due to his openiness to the subject matters he approaches. Great stuff in getting him for an interview.

  7. Nice interview David.

    And can I say “thanks” for including lots of direct quotes ?

    Print journalists infuriate me when they have an interview with someone, and barely 10 words of the subject’s utterances are quoted.

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