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Leech facials, eating dirt and Gwyneth Paltrow: Todd Sampson’s quest for wellness
Todd Sampson’s immersive approach to documentary making has seen him chained underwater (Redesign My Brain), submit to a voodoo initiation (Body Hack) and undergo eye surgery (Mirror Mirror: Body Dysmorphia). So it is not unexpected that a leech facial is among the weird and wacky therapies he explores in his third season of Mirror Mirror.
“At many stages of my life, I’ve been a wellness addict,” Sampson explains from his hometown of Sydney (the Canadian version), where he is visiting his father. “I’ve done a lot of these treatments before. I’ve been swimming around in the wellness waters.”
Todd Sampson undergoes a leech facial for his new series Mirror Mirror: Are You Well?
Are You Well? is a two-part series probing the global multimillion-dollar wellness industry. This time, however, the advertising creative and Qantas board member was not in entirely unfamiliar territory.
After having tried therapies such as cupping, silent meditation retreats, acupuncture and detoxing, Sampson grew sceptical about the benefits. Watching the rise of wellness influencers, specifically Gwyneth Paltrow and Miranda Kerr, who have come under fire for promoting potentially dangerous remedies, he became concerned that more people are turning to unqualified health advisers rather than doctors.
“What I find frustrating is the lack of trust in science, the anti-medical approach that people are taking,” says Sampson. “Gwyneth Paltrow has created a $US250 million business that sells pseudoscience. She caters to a wealthy, upper-middle class audience.”
In the series, Sampson travels to the US to confront Paltrow at Goop HQ. Denied entry, he instead visits her “favourite detox centre” in the Californian desert. In response to a “straight no” from Miranda Kerr, Sampson books a session with the model’s leech therapist in Florida, where he has a “leech facial” using his own sucked blood.
’There’s the other side of me that thinks, ‘Does [Gwyneth Paltrow] know that vaginal steaming is very, very dangerous?’
Todd Sampson
“I didn’t put this in the film, but Miranda Kerr phoned [the therapist] while I was on the table,” recalls Sampson. “It was surreal.”
Sampson was disappointed neither woman would speak to him about their controversial business enterprises. “There’s one side of me that wants to believe that Gwyneth has set out to make the world a better place,” he says. “Then there’s the other side of me that thinks, ‘Does she know that vaginal steaming is very, very dangerous?’”
There are moments in the series, which is anchored by experts, that hit hard for Sampson. He has an unsettling encounter with American pseudoscience lecturer Bruce Lipton. He becomes close with a terminally ill Darwin man eschewing chemotherapy for bee sting treatment. And after ingesting a South American psychoactive brew in the US, he shares details about his marriage, and his late mother’s struggle with addiction.
“The psychedelics open you up to your past,” he says. “It forces you back into your trauma to help you deal with it. In case of my mother, it just came out. I did think about cutting it, but it was real and it was how I felt.”
Todd Sampson (right) gets an IV drip with Tim Gurner at Melbourne wellness club Saint Haven in Mirror Mirror: Are You Well?
During the making of the series, Sampson joined a Macquarie University study into psychedelic microdosing.
“I microdosed. That study’s not out yet, so it wasn’t in the film,” he says. “I’m not a drug user. But I do think the potential of psychedelics is huge. So it was a weird balance for me because on the one hand, I don’t want to say, ‘Go out and use psychedelics’. On the other hand, I don’t want to further the stereotypes that it’s been associated with in the past that stop science from developing.”
Although Sampson had already shot a segment with American anti-ager Bryan Johnson, who swapped blood with his 17-year-old son, he shelved that for a session of vitamin drips and soil munching at the exclusive anti-ageing clinic of controversial Melbourne apartment developer Tim Gurner, who made headlines in September with comments about employee productivity.
“I didn’t know [Gurner’s] story,” says Sampson. “I didn’t know about his dad dying of cancer. I didn’t know that he is in fear of death and almost everything he does is a compensation for that. The place was so extravagant. It was dystopian … It was like, wow! This is the future of wellness.”
Mirror Mirror: Are You Well? premieres at 7.30pm on Wednesday, November 22, on Ten.
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