I think there’s a feeling of – a grassroots feeling of being betrayed by the elites in some way: that the system is working for itself and not for the people at the bottom. – Louis Theroux
As a BBC broadcaster, I really do hope that the new incarnation of ‘Top Gear’ with Chris Evans does well. – Louis Theroux
In my normal way of doing things, there’s a little bit of ‘going native’ that takes place, where you’re in a world long enough, you can’t really help but start to see things in a nuanced, more humanistic way. Just because you’re with people and you start to, in general, slightly like the people you’re with. – Louis Theroux
As a father of two children, I am used to seeing kids in the midst of a five-alarm meltdown over the choice of DVD or the necessity of broccoli. – Louis Theroux
I think people are so immersed in the anti-Scientology mindset by consuming tabloid media and stories about space aliens. It’s baffling. When I say I want to see a more positive side of the church, all I’m saying is I want to get past these headlines that talk about aliens and Tom Cruise jumping on a sofa. – Louis Theroux
It is important to note that most of the patients in Ohio’s mental health facilities have never committed crimes. They are institutionalised because they have lost touch with reality and are having problems functioning unaided in the community. – Louis Theroux
Empires will come and go. The Soviet Union collapses; China can become a superpower, but ‘Blue Peter’ stays the same. – Louis Theroux
After studying the subject for years, watching countless YouTube videos of Scientology handlers filming critics and journalists, it felt amazing to be on the receiving end myself: I felt like I’d been blooded. – Louis Theroux
I’ve got an interest in Zimbabwe. I spent a few months there before uni, so I’d like to get back to that. – Louis Theroux
Scientology is not that different from other religions. And yet, at the same time, we don’t have Anglicans doing the things that are alleged to be done in Scientology, at least in the Sea Org. – 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
Sometimes you shoot for 40 or 50 hours for a one-hour show, and you have to make some very hard choices. – Louis Theroux
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 feel like, if there’s an elephant in the room, I’d really like to start off by introducing the elephant in the room. And sometimes it’s funny. – Louis Theroux
I’ve always slightly harboured a dream of making a film, a documentary feature. Somehow, I just got into a way of working a routine of making TV docs. – Louis Theroux
People say I’m deceptively unassuming, but that’s the way I go through life. I’m not flash. You can make it sound calculated, but it’s pretty much just me. – Louis Theroux
It’s difficult to describe the weirdness of speaking to a man who appears to be perfectly in control of his faculties, who can deliver off-the-cuff repartee, and yet who is actually utterly disconnected from who he is. – 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
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
Do I care about clothes and stuff? Not much. It’s a bit sick, isn’t it, people spending all that money on clothes? I’m too stingy. I wouldn’t pay รด?100 for a shirt. – Louis Theroux
Sometimes I feel a bit socially disconnected in terms of being a little bit gullible about how people interrelate emotionally. – Louis Theroux
There are fear mongers who talk about Islam as somehow it is an incubator of hate… remember Christians, like the Westboro Baptist Church, are just as capable of promoting intolerance. – Louis Theroux