Louis Theroux

I like eating food after it's gone off.

I tell people I live in Harlesden in north-west London, and I can see them thinking, 'Why do you live there?'

Sometimes people think I'm sort of a Machiavelli who is thinking, 'How can I disarm people? I know: I'll create a persona; I'll get some spectacles, and when I meet you, I'll say, 'How are you doing?' And I will be very unassuming and polite and never get angry.'

I think people are so immersed in the anti-Scientology mindset by consuming tabloid media and stories about space aliens. It's baffling. When I say I want to see a more positive side of the church, all I'm saying is I want to get past these headlines that talk about aliens and Tom Cruise jumping on a sofa.

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

It is important to note that most of the patients in Ohio's mental health facilities have never committed crimes. They are institutionalised because they have lost touch with reality and are having problems functioning unaided in the community.

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

We have a double agenda of trying to deliver something exciting that people will talk about and will brighten their day and will amaze people and make us proud to have created an object of beauty. And on the other hand being true to the story.

True believers of Scientology seem to know with utmost certainty that they have found the answer to the deepest riddles of all time - they may or may not be right, but that kind of self-belief is very appealing.

Big game hunters and the hunting industry in South Africa know a lot of people regard what they do as terrible, and the media have tended not to do them any favours. So it was an uphill struggle to win trust from the people and to get into the world.

As a father of two children, I am used to seeing kids in the midst of a five-alarm meltdown over the choice of DVD or the necessity of broccoli.

There have been times when I've felt inappropriately emotional. I remember making 'The Most Hated Family in America' about the Westboro Baptist Church, and being on the way to a funeral of a U.S. soldier with the Phelps family; they were going to picket the funeral.