Jessica Brown
Mar 08, 2017
Getty for BFI
Louis Theroux has seen it all. Well, pretty much.
He’s interviewed Jimmy Saville, he’s riled up the Church of Scientology, gone behind bars and put himself in all sorts of other compromising positions that some viewers can only watch from behind a cushion.
But fans found out during a Twitter Q&A interview with the king of documentaries that there’s one thing he categorically won’t do.
Theroux said:
I would have been very curious to see what was going on in the Islamic State. I find religious extremism really bizarre, but also fascinating.
But I think it was mainly fear that prevented me going over there.I’ve seen too much about journalists being taken hostage and being beheaded, so I steered clear of that one.
And over on Reddit, Theroux did another Q&A with users, where he said he was too scared to interview with Isis.
He said:
I am interested in radical Islam. I would have loved to do a doc on Isis and go to Raqqa but I was too chicken.
He also admitted that he sometimes get emotionally involved when filming, and needs to decompress afterwards.
He said:
Going native is part of the job, in an emotional sense - forming an a rapport and a bit of an attachment. It's helpful that I have a team with me - director, sound recordist, AP.
They can yank me up if I get in too deep. We sometimes decompress back at the hotel.
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