Louis Theroux has revealed that it was not always easy to secure guests on his show.
The When Louis Met… documentary series aired back in the early ’00s and saw Louis go face to face with has-been celebrity figures, so he could share snippets into their lives. Theroux secured some great guests on the show, but it was not always easy finding them.
“At a certain point I made a couple of documentaries with high profile public figures who were eccentric in some way, or just over the hill, and there was something amusing about people in the afterlife of celebrity,” Louis told Graham Norton.
“And those rated really well and were received as a success, they were called the When Louis Met… series – we did one on Paul Daniels, I did one about Chris Eubank, Ann Widdecombe – and it sort of led to [broadcasters] saying, ‘We think that’s what you should do from now on.’
“There were aspects of it that I liked, but it became quite stressful trying to get people to agree – especially once the first few had come out and there was a sense in which they were perceived as ever so slightly… fun-poking, that’s a nice way of putting it.”
He later revealed that he likely contacted Graham Norton back in the day. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if your agent didn’t even forward the request to you and thought, ‘There’s no way Graham’s doing that,'” Theroux told Norton.
The When Louis Met… series is available on Netflix now.
