The documentary genre, shows like 'Making a Murderer' and 'The Jinx' on HBO, there's been a whole raft of long-form docs.
— Louis Theroux
If I actually invited someone to make a documentary about me, and I said, 'Anything goes', and then I refused to answer any questions, that would be inconsistent.
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.
One of the things I have always enjoyed about Scientology is their proactive approach to journalists who are covering them.
I am genuinely a bit confused about the world, a little bit bumbling.
I was always attracted and repelled by the idea of being a writer.
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.
It's in the DNA of Scientology that they don't trust journalists.
I'm not necessarily scanning for clues when I make documentaries.
I'm not trying to acquire a reputation as serious documentary maker for its own sake.
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.
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.
Arguably, there's an emotional side of life that I'm not always completely plugged into.
I don't like that feeling of holding back difficult questions. I feel like the more I can be transparent in the way I approach a story, the more it makes a satisfying programme.
You can say, 'I am a poet, rock-climbing shaman, and my name is Hiawatha Moonbeam,' and people in America will say, 'Hey, that's great. All power to you, man'.
I have been to a few A-list parties, but not massively. It's not my life, but it's fun dipping into it.
I think Donald Trump's had a pattern of leaping on the bandwagon of anything that he feels will further his candidacy, and if that means sowing more fear and paranoia and playing into a kind of xenophobic populist strain, then that's what he will do.
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.
I try not to be too judgmental.
True believers of Scientology seem to know with utmost certainty that they have found the answer to the deepest riddles of all time - they may or may not be right, but that kind of self-belief is very appealing.
My guilty fear is that what I'm doing, probably anyone could do. And that I just got a lot of lucky breaks.
Sometimes people think I'm sort of a Machiavelli who is thinking, 'How can I disarm people? I know: I'll create a persona; I'll get some spectacles, and when I meet you, I'll say, 'How are you doing?' And I will be very unassuming and polite and never get angry.'
I think I have a slight fear of intimacy.
All religions are, in some basic sense, irrational.
As a BBC broadcaster, I really do hope that the new incarnation of 'Top Gear' with Chris Evans does well.
I like eating food after it's gone off.
I just follow the subjects I'm interested in.
Although my dad's a writer, we grew up in a telly-watching household. I never found him disparaging about television.
Most people feel that they are the heroes of their own lives and that they're good people. So if they're in a crisis, they feel an understandable urge to set out their own version of events.
Sometimes I feel a bit socially disconnected in terms of being a little bit gullible about how people interrelate emotionally.
I think what I'm good at is getting to know people and trying to build a relationship over a few weeks and trying to get to the truth.
L.A. is the opposite of Britain in a lot of respects, and that's what draws so many British people here.
There is no religion that has a monopoly on bigotry.
I don't think I'm afraid of anything.
In the past, I've tried to show the human side of people involved in stigmatised or misunderstood lifestyles. I've tried to resist easy judgments and not pander to prejudices.
Not counting the brand of Sunni Islam practised by the so-called Islamic State, there is probably no religion in the world that comes in for more flak than Scientology.
I am genuinely slightly vague and chaotic in my habits. For good or ill, you know.
I both admired my father and his writing, and I saw how much he valued it.
I think of myself as being quite affable, approachable, fairly easy to get to know.
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.
Empires will come and go. The Soviet Union collapses; China can become a superpower, but 'Blue Peter' stays the same.
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.
When you're in your 40s, you become more conscious of life being of limited duration and that you need to create memories and go on little adventures from time to time.
When interviews are too cosy, I don't enjoy them.
Clearly I'm able to read emotions. But I do feel... What is it? Awkwardness. I'm not a slick dude. That's what it comes down to. The nakedness, the guilelessness... that's quite real.
I never misrepresent my position - you've got to be strong enough to make the argument and marshal the case.
I'm not that comfortable doing polemic or being strident.
You can talk to someone relatively famous, and they say, 'What do you do? What do you do for a job?' and I say, 'I make documentaries for the BBC,' and you see their eyes just glaze over.
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.
