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L.A. is the opposite of Britain in a lot of respects, and that's what draws so many British people here.
Louis Theroux -
Sometimes people think I'm sort of a Machiavelli who is thinking, 'How can I disarm people? I know: I'll create a persona; I'll get some spectacles, and when I meet you, I'll say, 'How are you doing?' And I will be very unassuming and polite and never get angry.'
Louis Theroux
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For publicity purposes, everything gets simplified, and the fact that I wear glasses and am somewhat bookish makes me a geek. That's fine; there needs to be a shorthand, but there are important geek traits that I don't really share.
Louis Theroux -
In west London where I live, white people are a minority. In the area I am in, which is the borough of Brent, whites are less than 50%.
Louis Theroux -
When interviews are too cosy, I don't enjoy them.
Louis Theroux -
I never want to feel more than the viewers. I'm not trying to be an automaton. It's like when you see people laughing on camera, and you don't find it funny as a viewer - it's an offputting experience.
Louis Theroux -
Prisons and jails, I tend to feel that you're actually safer as a journalist than you might think, certainly more than it appears.
Louis Theroux -
I don't feel that as human beings we have an obligation to dislike someone based on their beliefs, and it's OK to have a human reaction to someone even if you feel what they do is hideous and objectionable. You can still enjoy their company and find them interesting to be around.
Louis Theroux
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'Cunnamulla' is a beautifully bleak portrait of a lonely town in which people are leading lives of sort of quiet desperation.
Louis Theroux -
I have been to a few A-list parties, but not massively. It's not my life, but it's fun dipping into it.
Louis Theroux -
My guilty fear is that what I'm doing, probably anyone could do. And that I just got a lot of lucky breaks.
Louis Theroux -
When it was time to meet a chimpanzee, I got very, very anxious because they have the strength of ten men, so I hear.
Louis Theroux -
You can say, 'I am a poet, rock-climbing shaman, and my name is Hiawatha Moonbeam,' and people in America will say, 'Hey, that's great. All power to you, man'.
Louis Theroux -
Sometimes I feel a bit socially disconnected in terms of being a little bit gullible about how people interrelate emotionally.
Louis Theroux
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I've always seen TV as... it didn't occupy the same rarefied space as literature, but it's art you can use day to day. I've never been hung up on where it figures in the hierarchy of learning.
Louis Theroux -
I tell people I live in Harlesden in north-west London, and I can see them thinking, 'Why do you live there?'
Louis Theroux -
I'm not trying to acquire a reputation as serious documentary maker for its own sake.
Louis Theroux -
I don't like that feeling of holding back difficult questions. I feel like the more I can be transparent in the way I approach a story, the more it makes a satisfying programme.
Louis Theroux -
It's in the DNA of Scientology that they don't trust journalists.
Louis Theroux -
I think what I'm good at is getting to know people and trying to build a relationship over a few weeks and trying to get to the truth.
Louis Theroux
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I think of myself as being quite affable, approachable, fairly easy to get to know.
Louis Theroux -
True believers of Scientology seem to know with utmost certainty that they have found the answer to the deepest riddles of all time - they may or may not be right, but that kind of self-belief is very appealing.
Louis Theroux -
The trouble is, I just don't know if I'm too human or not human enough.
Louis Theroux -
There's obviously a lot of controversy around the issue of hunting as there is around gambling, and I like these stories where there is a moral dimension, stories that force you to think about your prejudices about a subject and explore the extent to which they are justified.
Louis Theroux