Louis Theroux On The Myth Of Cancel Culture & Making Documentaries That Confound Viewers
deadline.comLouis Theroux is not comfortable with the disruptor moniker. He almost recoils at the notion, sitting back in his chair, chewing over the word and its literal, historical and symbolic connotations. “It has become a cliché; it’s definitely a cliché,” he eventually says.
But then comes one of the pensive expressions Theroux is famed for. His eyes fixed behind black-rimmed glasses. A man silently arguing with himself, jostling for clarity of thought.
Suddenly, a revelation. Maybe he is a disruptor after all — or at least he once was. “There’s a sense in which I came along in my presenting work and was a bit of a disruptor,” Theroux decides. “I took elements of conventional presenting and elements of classical vérité filmmaking and combined them.” His talent in front of the camera was spotted by Michael Moore, who gave him a starring role in NBC’s TV Nation, interrogating evangelical Christians about the end of the world and launching mortars at an Arkansas shooting range.
By 1998, he had graduated to his own show on the BBC, Louis Theroux: Weird Weekends, and he has remained a durable screen presence ever since.
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