Watch Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends Online

In Weird Weekends Louis followed marginal, mostly American subcultures like survivalists, Black nationalists, White supremacists and porn stars, often by living among or close to the people involved. He investigated and researched their backgrounds, making friends and enemies in the process, often presenting moral questions to the viewer, encouraging them to make up their own mind regarding the subject at hand, rather than directly giving his own opinion. Theroux's documentary method subtly exposes the contradictions or farcical elements of some seriously-held beliefs. Theroux himself describes the aim of the series as:

"Setting out to discover the genuinely odd in the most ordinary setting. To me, it's almost a privilege to be welcomed into these communities and to shine a light on them and, maybe, through my enthusiasm, to get people to reveal more of themselves than they may have intended. The show is laughing at me, adrift in their world, as much as at them. I don't have to play up that stuff. I'm not a matinee idol disguised as a nerd."

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photo: Louis arriving At 2009 BAFTA Television Awards, 2009

Click here for the sidereel page and episodes of Series Three

Click here for the sidereel page and episodes of When_Louis_Met...

In When Louis Met... Theroux accompanied a different British celebrity in each program as they went about their day-to-day business, interviewing them about their lives and experiences. He regularly pressed them with quite personal questions to make the show one long stressful interview for the subject, something almost every celebrity did not expect. Louis questioned life decisions they have made and difficult areas for them most journalists would avoid (e.g. Anne Widdecombe's virginity). His episode about the DJ and charity fundraiser Sir Jimmy Savile "When Louis Met Jimmy" was voted one of the top fifty documentaries of all time in a survey by Britain's Channel 4. In "When Louis Met the Hamiltons," the disgraced Tory MP Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine were arrested following false allegations of indecent assault during the course of filming. In "When Louis Met Max Clifford," Max Clifford tried to set Louis up. However, it backfired when Max Clifford was caught lying, as the crew was still recording his live microphone during a conversation. After this celebrity series concluded, a retrospective was aired, called "Life with Louis."

In between When Louis Met... and his 3rd Documentary Series, Theroux made three special documentaries. He returned to American themes, working at feature-length, this time with a more natural tone. In Louis and the Brothel, he takes a sympathetic look at the prostitutes working at a legal brothel in Nevada. Other programs include Louis and the Nazis, and Louis with Michael Jackson's father, Joe. Theroux later signed a new deal with the BBC to make ten films over the course of three years.

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In March 2006 Louis Theroux signed a deal with the BBC to produce ten films over the course of three years, much to the delight of his fans, who did not know whether he would be back on the television ever again after a lengthy absence. They will air between 2006 and 2009.

Louis Sebastian Theroux is a British broadcaster holding both British and US citizenships. He is best known for his television series Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends and When Louis Met...

Louis is 6' 2" and was born in Singapore on May 20th, 1970. His father, the American novelist and travel writer, Paul Theroux, met his British first-wife Anne Castle, who worked for the V.S.O., in Uganda. Louis' older brother Marcel Theroux is a writer and television presenter, who was born in Kampala. Louis is the cousin of American actor Justin Theroux. (Louis' surname is of French-Canadian provenance and originates from the region around Sarthe and Yonne in France.) Louis' father decided to buy a family home in England and they settled down in a big, rambling house in Wandsworth, South London, where Louis spent his childhood.

Louis went to Westminster School (where he was a friend and contemporary of the comedians Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish) and earned a First Class Degree in History at Magdalen College, in Oxford. Upon graduating, Louis spent time in the United States. He recalls, "I didn't have a job lined-up in England and I felt that at least by being in America I was broadening my mind." His brother, Marcel, had just completed a post-graduate degree at Yale, so Louis stayed with him. He has stated that he "did menial work to make money and spent two months with a glass-blower who made unbelievably tasteless gilded cherub goblets."

Louis' first journalism job was in 1991 at a local paper, Metro Silicon Valley, an alternative weekly newspaper in San Jose, California. A year later he went to work as a writer for the New York based satirical magazine, Spy.

He got his break in television working as a correspondent for Michael Moore's 1995 series, TV Nation, where he anchored sixteen segments, ranging from the Klu Klux Klan, Avon Ladies in the Amazon, and President Clinton's hometown of Hope, Arkansas.

When TV Nation ended in 1995, Louis signed a development deal with the BBC, out of which came Weird Weekends, his critically acclaimed documentary series. As Theroux describes, "Weird Weekends sets out to discover the genuinely odd in the most ordinary setting."

On May 13, 2001 Theroux won the Richard Dimbleby Award for the Best Presenter (Factual, Features, and News) at the British Academy Television Awards (Bafta) for Weird Weekends. He won a second time on April 21, 2002, for his series When Louis Met...

He has guest-written for a number of publications including Hip-Hop Connection and continues to write for The Idler. Louis' first book, The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures, was published in Britain in 2005. In this book, Theroux returns to America to find out what happened in the lives of some of the people he featured in his television programs.

Louis currently owns two homes, one in W12 in London and one in Washington Park in Brooklyn, NYC. He lives in the London district of Harlesden with his girlfriend, Nancy, with whom he has a son, Albert.

Louis Theroux Fan Website