Louis Sebastian Theroux (born May 20 1970) is a British television presenter who first came to public notice as a reporter on Michael Moore's TV Nation and is best known for his series Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends and When Louis Met... . In the latter, he accompanied a different celebrity in each programme as they went about their day-to-day business, interviewing them about their lives and experiences as he did so. He is noted for his ability to get people to admit to revealing things about themselves by asking questions in a seemingly naïve and innocent way (see Socratic irony). This mock-naïve style is often credited to Nick Broomfield.

He was born in Singapore[1], and was educated at Westminster School (where he was a friend and contemporary of the comedians Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish) and Magdalen College at the University of Oxford where he took a first class degree in modern history.

He is the younger son of the American travel writer and novelist, Paul Theroux. His elder brother, Marcel Theroux , is also a writer and television presenter.

In the 1990s he worked for Spy magazine and Michael Moore's TV Nation series. His first journalism job was at Metro Silicon Valley, an alternative weekly in San Jose, California.

On April 21, 2002, he won the "Richard Dimbleby Award for the Best Presenter (Factual, Features and News)" at the BAFTAs, for his series When Louis Met...[2].

External links

• Biography of Louis Theroux from "A Louis Theroux Website"
• "The weird world of Louis Theroux" - a BBC News article dated Monday, August 13, 2001
• "Something weird about Louis" - an interview by Gyles Brandreth and published by the Telegraph (filed December 11, 2001)