Louis Theroux on Swapping Documentaries for Spotify: “I Find the Podcast Studio More Intimidating Than a Prison”
Louis Theroux is aware it sounds a little like he’s joking, but he’s quite serious.
“I find the podcast studio, in certain respects, a more intimidating location than being in a prison or a maximum security mental hospital,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday. “I know that sounds maybe like a joke, but I’m someone who has always sought comfort and refuge by being on location and surrendering to the flow of actuality. In the podcast space, you absolutely have to be prepared.”
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The British documentarian is beloved in the U.K. and beyond for travelling across the world — often the U.S. — and conducting, in a perfectly Theroux-esque manner, investigative interviews with people on the fringes of society. From cults and religious fanatics to swingers and sex offenders, there isn’t a lot of ground the BBC broadcaster hasn’t covered.
Some may recognize him from Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends (1998), My Scientology Movie (2015), or Surviving America’s Most Hated Family (2019), but for the last six months, the 54-year-old has turned his attention to podcasting.
The Louis Theroux Podcast is now in its third season on Spotify. The venture has so far sat Theroux down with A-list names like Paul Mescal, Shania Twain, Baz Luhrmann and Sharon Stone, generating headlines across the entertainment industry.
Episode one of the latest instalment dropped last week as the Brit — a cousin of Hollywood star Justin Theroux — spoke to Mia Khalifa, a Lebanese-American media personality and former adult film performer. Episodes with Saltburn‘s Barry Keoghan, chat show host Trevor Noah and tennis star Nick Kyrgios are among those set to be released in the upcoming weeks.
Theroux talked to THR about temporarily swapping documentary-making for podcasting, why he’ll never stop giving a platform to guests who might be considered controversial, and his dream talent picks for future seasons: “Charli XCX would be a great guest… Or we’ve been trying to get Morrissey. Morrissey, if you’re reading this, the door is open.”
Congratulations on season three, Louis. What’s motivating you in making this podcast?
That’s a good question. It’s the chance for me to talk to people in a way that feels unfiltered, unselfconscious and at length. For me, going back years, I’ve never particularly seen myself as a show- business animal, or even a conventional interviewer, TV presenter, host, whatever you want to call it. I’ve always thought of myself as someone who’s just curious and anything beyond that, like the technical aspects of doing it, say a piece to camera, or a walk and talk, these TV tropes… they’ve never come that naturally to me. When I was starting out making documentaries with Michael Moore, he gave me the license to slightly forget about the process and just have an experience and then capture it. Does that make sense?
I was a bit hesitant about doing podcasts at first, because I’m not on location, it’s an artificial setting. And what I realized was, because there’s so much space in terms of time and there’s no audience, microphones aren’t intrusive. You have a chance to have a flowing, unconscious encounter with someone. And for me, that’s what it’s all about. So maybe it’s a stretch to call that a documentary value, but I definitely see it as something that gives me a space to really get to know someone. [The audience] is not present in your mind to the point where they inhibit you from going into parts of the conversation that are more intimate or feel nuanced or slightly awkward. All those different tones and energies.
Is there an element of safety and security in a podcast studio that you can’t quite guarantee when you’re out in the field and speaking to people or potentially being in dangerous scenarios?
Truthfully, I find the podcast studio, in certain respects, a more intimidating location than being in a prison or in a maximum security mental hospital. I know that sounds maybe like a joke or something, but the reason is, I’m someone who has always sought comfort and refuge by being on location and
just surrendering to the flow of actuality. Being curious about people but absolutely allowing myself to go with the flow, which is the nature of documentary making. If you turn up at a prison on day one, it’s huge and weird, but it’s a very exciting thing to go through those doors. You might say there’s a level of physical danger, but there isn’t really — there’s tons of people, teachers and medical staff and not to mention the guards themselves, who go there every day and are safe, right? Most prison inmates don’t want to attack a visiting journalist, that’s for sure. Yet, here I am, and I get to wander around saying, “So, how does this work and what’s going on over here?” And my guilty secret is it’s a pretty easy thing to do.
In the podcast space, you absolutely have to be prepared. You spend days reading the books, listening to the albums, watching the movies. But you know you always could have done more. You always think, “Well, there’s a few movies that I haven’t go to yet.” And so there’s a fear of being found out in some way, and there’s also a fear of it not flowing in the way that you hope it will. I won’t say [podcasting] doesn’t come naturally, but it feels like higher stakes and therefore a slightly more intimidating endeavor. You think at the end of it, “If I’d said something different…” or “If I hadn’t opened with that question…” “Was I overly friendly? Was I not friendly enough?” All those questions around the ambiguity of the space. You’re a host to someone, and with that goes a certain obligation to be hospitable. But you’re also a journalist, so you want to interrogate them. You want to support them where appropriate and challenge them where appropriate.
How have you found that transition from documentary-making to podcasting? Is it a whole different world?
I haven’t stopped making documentaries, and I do still see myself as mainly a documentary maker. But clearly, for the past six months or so, most of my professional energy has gone into making these podcasts. It’s funny, because it is quite a crowded market and and maybe that was initially what stopped me from doing podcasting or even entertaining it as a possibility. Back in 2020, before I’d made any podcasts other than being a guest on some, it seemed to be there were more podcasts than there were people in the world. But my hand was somewhat forced by the pandemic and the fact that I couldn’t travel for work. And so without other options, we decided to do these remotely recorded interviews that were then on BBC Sounds.
I do also think these podcasts remind me of not just my own. There are other ones that I enjoy where you have free ranging conversations with guests. Guests that can be at times controversial or somewhat high-minded or really reflective, right? Like to interview Nick Cave for two or three hours, and actually talk about tragedy, despair, but also spirituality, redemption, artistry — that’s a lot of ground to cover, and you’re not going to see that on a chat show. I know this isn’t the question you asked, but I just want to say: If you look at old episodes of things like The Dick Cavett Show, or The David Frost Show, or Mike Douglas — these American chat shows where they would have on a member of the Black Panthers, or they would have on Orson Welles, or they would talk to John Lennon or Ralph Nader — [there was] a really extraordinary range of guests and and they weren’t afraid to have conversations that were intellectual or philosophical or high-minded or sad or politically dissident, right? All of these things are up for grabs, which we lost a bit. So if you can hear, let’s say, your favorite actor or director talk for a couple of hours on a podcast, that’s so much more satisfying and enjoyable than seeing them for 15 or 20 minutes on a late night chat show.
Is podcasting the future for you?
Is it gonna be my main thing? I don’t know. That’s not the plan, really, but I do know that I’m enjoying it more than I had any reasonable right to expect. Because I know I’m a bit of a late comer — I first became aware of the long-form podcast interview in about 2013 when a friend of mine recommended Marc Maron’s podcast and I was like, “Wow, he talks to these comedians and actors for an hour or an hour and a half, and he’ll have conversations with people like Robin Williams or Tom Green or Andy Dick or Louis CK,” and they felt really textured and quite deep and and surprisingly soul-bearing. After that, I became aware of Joe Rogan, and then other people. And now, increasingly, we’ve got people like my friend Adam Buxton, or you’ve got Lex Friedman. There’s a ton of amazing podcast interviewers.
With your documentaries, there is a controversial nature to a lot of them. You go and speak to people who have contentious and often offensive beliefs or are simply controversial in the way they live their lives. I wonder if that still appeals to you, then, giving these people platforms. A lot of people would argue that they are not owed that space.
I hear that and I think it’s healthy to debate those sorts of things. And one of the pleasures that I have, one of the things that I can do in the podcast space is bring in voices or have guests that are a little bit surprising or unpredictable or not your typical actor or director or comedian promoting their products. So for example, the first guest of this run was Mia Khalifa, and she came to fame initially as an adult performer, and so in a sense, there’s overlap with things that I’ve done on TV.
And then the episode two that dropped today is an interview with Headie One, who’s a drill artist, some of his lyrics have created controversy because they’ve been construed in some quarters as encouraging gang violence, so there’s overlap with that and stories I’ve done about the world of rap in America. That term “platforming” is a very blunt instrument, because it seems to cover any time you feature someone on television, but that could be a live broadcast, or a chat show, a documentary, or it could be an exposé. It’s helpful to distinguish between someone giving an uncritical, uninterrogated chance to air their beliefs. [You need] a presenter or a host who’s asking, hopefully, incisive and forensic questions and interrogating a set of assumptions. I made a career of daring to go to places that are definitely out on the edge of political or social discourse, including people involved in crime or sex offenders or white nationalists. I think I’m okay with it because, and in fact, I’m more than okay with it… The reason I do it and believe in it is that I think that those beliefs deserve to be interrogated.
In a world where everyone can platform themselves, like on YouTube, Instagram, X or Rumble… Rumble, you can see anything on there. I think it’s important for people such as myself to do good journalism.
What are the ambitions for The Louis Theroux Podcast going forward?
To grow the audience and also grow the scope of where we can take the conversations. I’m proud of all the episodes, but especially times when it’s felt as though we’re delivering something that you haven’t seen or heard elsewhere. I did a conversation on the podcast with Rose McGowan, and it was a chance to interrogate all of the the ways in which Harvey Weinstein got away with his misdeeds. And I did a conversation with [Feminist writer] Germaine Greer, and that was a remote chat, she was in Australia. And Germaine Greer’s obviously got herself in hot water a number of times over the years, so she’s not going to pop up on a chat show, right? Some people felt I shouldn’t have interviewed her. But for me, it was a no brainer, because I grew up venerating her in my family, that first wave Feminist Revolution was sacramental to the outlook that I was brought up in.
The other thing I’d say is that I’m really thrilled that we’re fully visualized now. In the past, we dropped social media clips, but the whole episodes were not available as video. And sometimes people would say, “This clip of you with PinkPantheress is great. Where can I watch the whole thing?” And the truth was, you couldn’t watch the whole thing because that wasn’t the deal. We were just doing audio only. So now they’ve got the video, plus audio. That’s ridiculously exciting for me, because it grows the reach [and] I think a lot of people come to a podcast expecting that. It also means that, just as a consumer myself, I enjoy facial expressions and body language, and I enjoy watching this hybrid of audio and video that’s not quite a TV program, but is like a filmed interview.
Who do you want to speak to next?
So [this season] we’ve got Mia Khalifa, Headie One, Barry Keoghan, which is great, obviously — Saltburn, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Banshees of Inisherin — he was brilliant. Trevor Noah, I mentioned Katie Price, Nick Kyrgios. Those are the ones I’m allowed to announce. I mean, I have dream guests.
Why was Barry so brilliant? Did anything surprise you about him?
What surprised me, though it probably shouldn’t have done, was just how lovely he is and how open and how he’s full of life. He doesn’t box, I think, anymore, but he was quite a devoted amateur boxer for a number of years. And even when he was making The Killing of a Sacred Deer, he was boxing. I think he used it as a way of relieving stress. He would go and fight a few bouts and he talked about how it would, I think, make him feel present. And he compared boxing to acting in the way in which, in both of them, when it’s going well, you’re absolutely in the moment. That beautiful thing of you’re not looking ahead too much, you’re not reflecting on what just happened. You’re just right there where you are.
He talked very sensitively and revealingly about his upbringing, which is something he’s talked about before. They weren’t blessed with a huge amount of money, and, as he’s mentioned before, their lives were touched by issues around addiction. That’s a painful subject and it was palpable in the room that it was painful, but I felt very lucky that he had chosen to speak openly and in a heartfelt way about some of these sensitive things that he’d been through.
And who are your dream guests?
So many. It would be easier to tell you who isn’t [a dream guest]. There’s so many brilliant people out there. There’s guests who take me outside my normal journalistic terrain, or at least in the sense outside of what I would ordinarily possibly be aware of. Maybe that’s misstated slightly. I mean, Charli XCX would be a great guest, for example. I think conversations have been going on, we’ll see where they lead. But then again, someone completely different would be John Waters, the filmmaker, a legend across several decades. Hairspray, Pink Flamingos, many others. Dave Chappelle. I mean, I have to be careful I don’t go too far into my overly cerebral preoccupations. I’ve been saying to the team, I’d love to interview Michel Houellebecq, the French provocateur and novelist. He’s the leading light of dangerous French literature. I haven’t heard him do many interviews. He’s always good value. He’s a prognosticator and a little bit of a troll. The idea of having a chat with him would be a thrill.
Paul Verhoeven, the Dutch director, and now I’m betraying my age a bit, but Bob Dylan or Van Morrison or Mick Jagger. Or someone on the younger end, like Central Cee or Billie Eilish or Cardi B. We’ve been trying to get Morrissey. He’s a classic case of a brilliant artist whose views have got him into hot water for understandable reasons. But I can’t stop loving his music. So Morrissey, if you’re reading this, the door is open.
And lastly, just out of personal curiosity, I’d love to know what your favorite documentary you’ve ever made is.
I try not to play favorites, but I will say that I recently said to Chat GPT — like a lot of people, I’ve increasingly used AI to try and see how helpful it is — I said to Chat GPT, “What is Louis Theroux’s best documentary?” He gave like five answers. I think number one was The Most Hated Family in America. And I do think that’s a good one, so maybe we’ll go with that. The anorexia one is a solid piece of work as well.
The Louis Theroux Podcast, from Mindhouse, is available on Spotify and all podcast providers.
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