Louis Theroux’s documentaries follow his attempts to get to know the people at the heart of some of the world’s – and especially America’s – most controversial and fascinating lifestyles.

In a career spanning nearly two decades he has interrogated the engrained criminals at San Quentin prison; lived with the extreme believers of the Westboro Baptist Church; gambled with the high-rollers at a Las Vegas mega-casino, and stalked game with trophy hunters on South Africa’s wild animal farms.

Louis started out as a correspondent on Michael Moore’s TV Nation before being signed up by the BBC to make his own series, Weird Weekends, about unusual American subcultures. In 2000 he began a series of specials about intriguing British public figures, including one featuring disc jockey Sir Jimmy Savile and another which saw him live with the disgraced Tory minister Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine as they were falsely accused of rape and subjected to a media siege.

In 2011, he spent more than a month in Miami for a two-part series about the inmates at one of America’s most violent jails.

In 2012, Louis revisited his 1997 documentary about the world of male performers in Twilight of the Porn Stars. He also visited one of the best schools in America for autism in Extreme Love: Autism and travelled to Phoenix, Arizona, the US capital of dementia care Extreme Love: Dementia.

In March 2015, the BBC broadcast Louis’ LA Stories where he immersed himself in the world of Ohio’s State Psychiatric Hospitals in a two-part documentary; in the third, he travelled to a hospital in San Francisco to meet transgender children. Louis returned to BBC2 in spring 2016 with 2 films based in the UK, “Drinking to Oblivion” and “A Different Brain”, taking an immersive look at alcohol addiction and brain injury.  In 2017, BBC2 broadcast his trilogy “Dark States”.

Louis’ feature-length documentary “My Scientology Movie” was released in the UK in Autumn 2016 and was the highest-grossing theatrical release documentary that year.

In September 2016, Louis undertook a sell-out tour of Australia, “Louis Live on Stage”.

Louis is currently filming his next documentaries for the BBC both here and in the US.

Louis’s programmes have won numerous accolades including two Baftas and an RTS award and are shown all over the world. He also writes for print publications. His 2005 travel book about some of his adventures, THE CALL OF THE WEIRD has just been re-published with some additional material. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.