Louis Theroux’s big fear: Ironic sex symbol no holds barred
Theroux is willing to talk about anything but it is when talking about himself that he appears most uncomfortable. The British TV star reveals all including his big fear and the one story he wishes he had covered — ISIS.
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Louis Theroux hesitantly describes himself as an “ironic sex symbol”. Admired by many for his quirky investigative style reportages and his slightly awkward and geeky style, the 49-year-old journalist and father of three is flattered to be considered in that vein.
“Any kind of sex symbol will do me,” he tells Insider. “There’s this sort of slightly tongue-in-cheek appreciation that goes on where … I would be all too willing to believe that it was completely un-ironic, except the pictures that are used, my glasses are always crooked, it’s never the ones where I look that dreamy.
“And also I’m aware that I don’t have a conventional looks if you like. People expressing some sort of, I guess, romantic interest, I can’t pretend I don’t like it. It is nice. It is funny because I didn’t grow up thinking, ‘Oh, I’m a geek’. I didn’t get glasses till I was about 15, by which time I thought, well, I’m a sort of outgoing, reasonably funny, rather studious, but good-humoured sort of person.
“I played a bit of Dungeons And Dragons, but I wasn’t big into computers. So I ticked a couple of boxes, but not all of them. So when my shows came out everyone said, ‘Oh shambling nerd, Louis Theroux in his specs’, I didn’t really completely recognise who
they were describing. So now that there seems to be an appreciation for whatever I seem to represent, it is nice.”
Theroux would prefer to be known for his work more than anything else but has developed something of a cult following for his TV documentary specials.
While interest in his personal life comes with the territory of being famous, it is all a bit strange for Theroux and something he thought a lot about while writing his new memoir, Gotta Get Theroux This: My Life And Strange Times In Television.
“Part of writing the book has been trying to figure out who I am,” he says ahead of his upcoming Australian tour. “I started writing it nearly two years ago and it started out being about the work, and the more I wrote, the more I realised I owed it to my readers and myself to almost take the same approach to myself as I would if I were someone else. I realised I was slightly hiding behind the journalism and not going deep into myself … something in me resists that.”
Sitting down at London’s luxe Covent Garden Hotel, Theroux is willing to talk about anything. But it is when talking about himself that he appears most uncomfortable.
“As a journalist, you are taught that you are not supposed to be the story,” he says. “You’re supposed to get out of the way of the story and pretend to some slightly illusory impartiality. But actually, there comes a time when you either reach a level where people end up being curious about you, or it just makes sense to own up to who you are for your own good. The other part of it is I feel for the shows to work sometimes it is helpful to maintain a little bit of mystery. Mystery is overstating it,
just a bit of invisibility really.
“Even though I am in my programs, I don’t really talk a great deal about myself. It is not really about me. I suppose I’ve also worried that once you sort of say, ‘do you know what? This is who I am’, people will say, ‘well look, it is not the great Oz man of mystery, it is actually this wrinkly old man who is not very interesting, funny or charismatic’.
All of this is a lot of throat clearing because my fear is that I am actually someone a bit boring. I am this quite insecure and anxious person who finds a sense of release by avoiding intimacy in his own personal life by seeking it out in his work.”
Theroux brings his Louis Theroux Without Limits Live On Stage show to Australia in January.
“Even if I wanted to hold back the personal stuff, I wouldn’t be able to because I’m there in person on stage and a lot of the shows hinge around unpredictability, interacting with the audience, going out, talking to people, having fun with people, audience members asking me questions,” he says. “The real me emerges whether I like it or not, and to be honest, I do quite enjoy that part of it.”
Theroux’s documentaries have covered topics ranging from
neo-Nazis to gun lobbyists, black nationalist groups, hypnotherapy, Jimmy Savile, extreme body building, mail order brides and gangsta rap.
He has few regrets or fears, his address is on the electoral role and he tries not to take criticism personally. One difficulty though has been stories that require him to expose himself.
“It may sound odd, but I had a lot of stress around an episode about swingers, again another one about a brothel,” he recalls. “I was in a committed relationship at the time so there was something about it that made me queasy, pretending that I might be about to have sex with someone on TV.”
Very little is off limits with the exception of “sex outside of marriage” with his wife Nancy.
“The limits are the ones you would imagine. I don’t want to hurt other people, either physically, and ideally I don’t really want to upset people. Sometimes you have to do that. It’s in the nature of journalism,” he says.
“I’m naturally quite a hemmed-in person in my normal life. I like a drink. Sometimes I get a bit silly. I like making jokes. I like taking the piss a bit when I’m with my mates. But I’m not a wild character. I mainly save that for my work and in fact, if anything, my work is an outlet that I appreciate as a way of getting me out of my comfort zone … letting me strip off in a porn agent’s office or going to a sensual eating party or being among gun-wielding survivalists in America.”
There’s one story Theroux would like to have covered but couldn’t.
“ISIS, the idea of going out to Syria and spending time on the ground when it was still in effect,” he says. “They were kidnapping and beheading journalists so that was a limit. That’s the most amazing, strange development that’s happened on the world stage. The idea of a quasi-medieval caliphate where gay people are being pushed off buildings and people being crucified and beheaded and incinerated alive, burned alive. That’s what they did to the captured Syrian air pilot. It was unbelievable and extraordinary, and in certain ways, the ultimate kind of story that I would’ve been interested in. But I wouldn’t go out there.”
Theroux lives in northwest London with Nancy and their three boys — Frederick, Walter and Albert — in what he describes as “a pretty standard domestic set-up”. He likes playing football with his kids, who are learning what Dad does.
“They know I’m on TV. They’re 13, 11 and four so I don’t think they’re quite old enough to watch the programs. I think they are beginning to figure out a little bit about what it is I do, but it’s not important for me particularly, you know, our relationship hinges on me being a dad, them being my kids, right?”
As a family, they’ve tossed around the idea of moving to Australia for a spell so Theroux could work on some stories here. That said, Theroux has also indicated his wife would like him to “hang up his boots”.
“She’s been very understanding, putting up with me travelling as much as I have, being away as much as I’ve been. I think she’d like it if I slowed down a bit,” he says.
Louis Theroux Without Limits Live
On Stage; full dates louistherouxliveonstage.com