Louis Theroux

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 was always attracted and repelled by the idea of being a writer.

I think I have a slight fear of intimacy.

I think of myself as being quite affable, approachable, fairly easy to get to know.

It's in the DNA of Scientology that they don't trust journalists.

As a BBC broadcaster, I really do hope that the new incarnation of 'Top Gear' with Chris Evans does well.

Empires will come and go. The Soviet Union collapses; China can become a superpower, but 'Blue Peter' stays the same.

I'm not necessarily scanning for clues when I make documentaries.

I like eating food after it's gone off.

I just follow the subjects I'm interested in.

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.

Although my dad's a writer, we grew up in a telly-watching household. I never found him disparaging about television.

When interviews are too cosy, I don't enjoy them.

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.

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.

Arguably, there's an emotional side of life that I'm not always completely plugged into.

Sometimes I feel a bit socially disconnected in terms of being a little bit gullible about how people interrelate emotionally.

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.

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.