The Louis Theroux Podcast - S5 EP4: John Wilson on collaborating with Nathan Fielder, confronting a cult, and hating mockumentaries

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Louis speaks to John Wilson, fellow documentarian and creator of the cult-favourite series, How To...with John Wilson. The pair swap stories about their respective work, including discussing John��s collaborations with writer and producer Nathan Fielder, how joining an acapella group exposed him to the NXIVM sex-cult, and their shared disdain for mockumentaries. Plus, John turns the tables on Louis…   Warnings: Strong language and some adult themes.  Links/Attachments:  TV Show: ‘How To with John Wilson’ (2020-2023) - HBO  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0cltlm3/how-to-with-john-wilson     TV Show: ‘Louis Theroux: Gambling in Las Vegas’ (2007) - BBC  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007957z/louis-theroux-gambling-in-las-vegas    TV Show: ‘Louis Theroux’s LA Stories’ (2014) - BBC  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b03zjc67/louis-therouxs-la-stories     Pitch Perfect (2012)   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mbsapmW0bg     Song: ‘Roxanne’, The Police (1978)  https://open.spotify.com/track/3EYOJ48Et32uATr9ZmLnAo      TV Show: ‘Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult’ (2020) - Starz  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch_4jn_m6-g    TV Show: ‘The Vow’ (2020) - HBO  https://www.hbo.com/the-vow-2020     TV Show: ‘Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends’ (1998-2000) - BBC  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02q5prq/louis-therouxs-weird-weekends-series-1-1-christianity?seriesId=unsliced     The Amazing Johnathan (2019)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9358084/     TV Show: ‘When Louis Met...Jimmy Savile’ (2000) - BBC  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0g3zjn9/when-louis-met-series-1-jimmy-savile     TV Show: ‘Louis Theroux: America’s Most Dangerous Pets’ (2011) - BBC  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b016yklh/louis-theroux-americas-most-dangerous-pets     TV Show: ‘Nathan For You’ (2013-2017) - Comedy Central  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2297757/     TV Show: ‘The Rehearsal’ (2022 – Present) - HBO  https://www.hbo.com/the-rehearsal     Book: The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcolm (1989)  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Journalist-Murderer-Janet-Malcolm/dp/1847085342     Book: The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Janet Malcolm (1994)  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Silent-Woman-J-Malcolm/dp/0679751408    Book: Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession, Janet Malcolm (1977)  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychoanalysis-Impossible-Profession-Janet-Malcolm/dp/0394710347    Credits:  Producer: Millie Chu   Assistant Producer: Emilia Gill Production Manager: Francesca Bassett   Music: Miguel D’Oliveira   Audio Mixer: Tom Guest  Video Mixer: Scott Edwards   Shownotes compiled by Immie Webb  Executive Producer: Arron Fellows       A Mindhouse Production for Spotify   www.mindhouse.co.uk     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Microphone check. Chickity check, chickity check. Microphone check. Hello, Louis Theroux here. Welcome to my podcast, which I like to call the Louis Theroux podcast. My guest this episode is documentary maker John Wilson, best known for his Emmy nominated series How To with John Wilson on HBO and also on BBC iPlayer. It is a, well it's hard to describe when we talk about it in the chat, but basically a first person documentary series in which John, he's always behind the camera doing the filming, but he goes on adventures around New York, drilling into random encounters. A lot of it is made up of imagery grabbed on the streets of New York painstakingly spliced together. There's very fast cuts of seagulls pecking at bins

and then random people doing strange things in the streets. A bit like the photographer Ouija, he collects surreal juxtapositions of daily life and then in the course of it goes on an adventure by meeting someone and being sucked into a strange, digressive journey into a subculture or a hobby of some kind. And it's exec'd by Nathan Fielder, who you may know from Nathan for You and the rehearsal. We talk about him. I first became aware of John, I think partly because of the Nathan Fielder connection. I'd interviewed Nathan for a magazine and then he put John on my radar and then it being on the iPlayer, I watched it. And there's been many comparisons made between

my documentaries and John's. There's interesting overlap, also significant differences. And then it turned out John had seen my programs and was a fan. So it made perfect sense that we should meet up. This one was recorded in person quite a while ago, middle of last year, I believe, at Spotify HQ. We were midway through the Euros, if that takes you back, hence the reference to watching the matches. John told me he'd flown in from New York, especially for the interview, which was of course very flattering. John arrived unsurprisingly, if you've seen his documentaries, with a camera and he was filming at various points. He films everything. And in fact, he nearly got thrown out of Spotify by security because I guess they weren't used to someone

filming on their way into the building and it's not allowed. And then during the chat, he started filming me. So if you are listening, you may hear a whirring sound. And if you're watching, you'll see him filming me. So maybe I'm gonna be in a documentary in the future. That's probably about all you need to know. There's a bit of bad language, some adult content, oh and if you're an acapella fan I do say some slightly disparaging things about that wonderful and very life-affirming art form of weird people singing in close harmony. So there's that. All that and much, much more after this. When did you get in? I got in on Sunday, I guess.

You flew over from where, New York? Yeah. What class? I was in coach. Were you? Yeah. You're keeping it real. But you work for HBO, you? You're keeping it real.

But you work for HBO, you're pulling in the big bucks. Yeah, well, you know, I think I could have done this virtually, but I decided to come out by myself. This might be overly intrusive, so feel free to not answer, but have you come out here on your own dime? Yeah, but I've been looking for any excuse to come out here but also just to meet you. You know I thought that's something that I've always wanted to do. For real? Yeah. Okay now you've disarmed me completely.

Well yeah I know I've always been a huge fan of your stuff I mean for the past I really just devoured your all everything you've done over the past 15 years or so. Are you? Yeah no I mean, for the past, I really just devoured everything you've done over the past 15 years or so. Come on, stop it. Are you? Yeah, no, I mean. Okay, let's just get this out of the way. Have you actually seen any of my programs? I've seen, I think, almost everything you've done.

Does anything stand out? I'm putting you on the spot now. This doesn't come that naturally to me. You know, the... I'm fishing, I'm not fishing for compliments. The gambling in Vegas one is great. I mean, I loved your LA stories. They were just so amazing.

Thank you. Did you see this? Because one of those was about sex offenders. Yeah, I mean, that was one of the most chilling ones I've ever seen. And I think when you finish the third season of my show, I think you'll notice there's a bit of a those two rhyme in a way. It's a big deal for me. Tell me more. Let's make this about me. Yeah.

Don't be... No, truly. This is like a big moment for sure. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Let me return the compliment. I've loved watching your stuff and I see some overlap, but I also see significant differences. And it's worth mentioning some of the reviews have said, well, once The Telegraph reviewed your show and said, America's Louis Threw is awkwardly enjoyable. And then another

one said, this may not mean anything to you, because it refers to a British interviewer. But as an interviewer, Wilson makes Louis Threw look like Terry Wogan. Who is Terry Wogan? Terry Wogan is a he's an Irish talk show host no longer with us. But he was a he was a fixture. He was something like he wasn't quite Johnny Johnny Carson because he wasn't a comedian, but he was the go-to sort of mainstream TV host on the BBC who the big stars would sit down with. Okay, but he was a little more traditional or?

He was, people in Radio Land, John Star, and this isn't my cue to tell you to stop by the way, but I feel like when you film a different energy is in the room and then I sort of need people at home to know so John's now okay well I wasn't sure how if how part of if there's any video component was there a reason why you started then you'd seemed you seemed pretty consumed you know with reading a quote. So I feel like when you read the quote,

I feel like you wouldn't be performing as much. OK. Anyway, I'll put it away. No, no, but that wasn't me telling you to stop doing it. Anything's fair. You could come and punch me right now, and it would be fine. But I just need people at home to know what was happening. Otherwise, it would be just muffled confusion and me crying.

It's a temptation to invite you to do a critique or a kind of loving commentary on my oeuvre. For those people who don't know your work, and I know this is really basic, so I slightly apologise, but how would you describe what you do? And specifically this series, there's three seasons of it. How to with John Wilson. Is that how to with John Wilson? I've seen, there's 18 episodes, I've seen 14 of them, which I feel bad of not having seen the last four.

I just haven't got there yet. Oh, they're really good. They're the best ones. Yeah, I think they really might be. They unlock the key to the whole, without seeing those you can't really. They're the best ones. Yeah, I think they really might be. You unlock the key to the whole, without seeing those you can't really make sense of the other ones. Nevertheless, we'll do our best.

Well, you can take them kind of a la carte. Each episode deals with a very kind of mundane problem that I have, whether it's I don't know how to throw out my batteries or I don't know how to throw out my batteries or I don't know how to kind of fairly split the check between friends at a dinner or something like that. So that's the kind of that's the way it usually begins, but then it expands into this like kind of crazy

I still don't know how to pitch the show. I still have like haven't figured out how to describe it. Yeah you probably can. It's I mean the way that I would very like pitched it initially was that it was like Planet Earth but for New York City. David Attenborough since. Yeah and and so it is a study of humanity and I'm very much just shooting everything from like a specific distance. But I'm just filming people in public usually and that becomes a larger kind of collage that I make. But then something happens, so basically the first third to a half, because I feel like

there's a jump that takes place halfway through, roughly speaking. I mean, I know there's more to it than that, but for the first 10, 15 minutes, it feels like you're ruminating about a kind of day-to-day, a quotidian dilemma that affects the young man in New York City that you are. And it's illustrated with extraordinarily poetic or unintentionally comic moments that are caught in New York with people doing strange things, whether they're rollerblading backwards past a sign or some ironic juxtaposition.

But then, and that's assembled with exquisite care. Here's me telling you what you do. I can't believe you're at this. And then halfway through it feels like somehow, without quite being aware when you're watching it, how it's just happened, you're having quite an intimate and strange conversation with someone.

An unlikely person has entered the picture and it turns out that they have a weird conspiracy theory or a strange belief or a passion or a hobby. They're obsessed with Hoovers, vacuum cleaners, or they believe that they're in some parallel reality or that they're reincarnation of someone. And then we arrive at a set piece in the third act where you kind of leave New York City very often or you arrive at some gathering of people and you're sort of down the wormhole. Yeah, there's usually like a big, yeah, third act moment where I really kind of drill in

just to one subculture or, you know, a really passionate person. And that usually has some way of illuminating some deeper truth about the original subject matter. You know, so it's a bit of a Jacob's letter to get there. It's very oblique, isn't it? And so, for example, the one that I watched this morning... Mmm. I know, right? You've had a long morning. Last minute cramming.

The one I watched this morning was how to talk about sports. Is that? How to watch the game. How to watch the game. Thank you. And it starts with a sense of awkwardness, which a lot of men have felt like, especially men of a certain artistic or bookish persuasion where they feel unqualified to talk in a manly way about, wow, look at that guy's pitching arm or Southgate needs to push forward more. I can't believe he didn't

bring Grealish. These are British football references, English football references. The Euros are on at the moment. Oh yeah. I did watch the, I did watch English when, yeah'm sorry, England, English, Jesus. It started so well. I did watch the... You can't say, I watched the England... It's weird that you can't, you have to say, I watched England. Although, it's not like there's 70 million people there, which would be England, but I watched the English...

You could say the English football team. I watched the game yesterday. And I was really enjoying watching that game there at the pub, whatever you want to call it. Did it feel awkward or you felt like you were getting away with it? I felt like I was getting away with it. I think I was in a corner, but I just, I really, there's something so, I love so much about the energy of a room like that, that I feel like I can't get anywhere else.

And I think that's what I want. Just anyone excited about anything, you know? I'm just attracted to any room like that where there's like really like intense energy. Yeah. Especially if you don't feel emotionally involved. I've been going around telling people I don't care if England win.

And then there was a game on Sunday night where England were 1-0 down for 95 and a half minutes. And then in the 95th minute, 96th minute, England equalized. And it was like I was possessed. It was like some other soul entered my body. And a little part of me was thinking like, this isn't you. But very little. And most of it I was fully inhabited by some strange patriotic energy.

I think it's cool. I guess. And I think for me a perennial watcher, a perennial kind of, whether it's a wallflower or someone who's a little bit just off to one side in life. For those occasions when you get caught up in something it is cool. I'm the one at the gig who's always thinking, am I enjoying this or am I enacting some ritualized transaction, some disgusting commercialized facsimile of pleasure? At like a concert?

Yeah. I feel similarly in a lot of, I mean, a lot of arenas and a lot of spaces like that where it feels very kind of oppressive in that way where I feel like such a sucker. It just feels like a very inorganic space to me and I feel like I have no choice but to give these people money. Mason- You know, I know we're halfway through me describing an episode that I watched this morning but while we're on music just quickly, because I know you love karaoke. Oh, I do, yeah.

Is it like a sacramental thing for you? I think I was a little, I think, embarrassed of singing for a while, because I was in an a cappella group in college. Right, which also comes up in the TV series. That may be the most embarrassing clip in the whole series. Yeah. Is that we flashback, which episode is it in?

How to Appreciate Wine. Which is a good episode. I can't even remember how it's relevant to the episode. There's a bit of a tie in with cult mentality, where you just kind of go along with this kind of herd as you're trying to fit in. But then that, like we became, in the acapella group, we were kind of groomed by this cult leader that we didn't realize was a cult leader at the time. Will Barron Was it Keith Ranieri? Will Barron Yeah.

Will Barron Himself? Will Barron Himself, yeah. Will Barron I mean, look, there's so much to that. This is very, we've hit paper because this is all very germane. And there's so much to say about this. The first thing is to say that they were called the Binghamton Crosby's. Will Barron Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. Will Barron what do you think about that name?

Very punny. The Binghamton Crosby's, right. It's a pun on Bing Crosby. Yeah. I remember when my brother went to, he went off to Yale. We're half American. So we thought we had a pretty good understanding of American culture, but Yale, he discovered glee clubs, not like as a participant, but he went along to one and he was like, Lou, it was the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen in my life. They were dressed up like barbers shop quartets, wearing school boaters and going like, Mr. Sandman. And he said it was, I mean, it's a kind of, well, how would you describe it? Well, that feels less cringy to me than what I was doing

I feel like there's something really wholesome and kind of classic about right about the actual, you know Straw hat, you know, whatever but we were we would do like classic rock kind of Yeah, so I you know, it was just I was just trying to make friends in college, but I think like once you do Acapella, it's it's really like one of the most embarrassing things you could do on stage So I feel comfortable. I think doing other stuff now like in Situations that would normally would mortify me. I feel like I've done the most mortifying thing already feel I mean, we've been joking around about it. Like it's a little silly and corny and you know, there's something maybe saccharin or

wholesome or vanilla or if I want to play the race card, white about it, right? But at the same time, like it can be, if it's well done, it's also joyous and beautiful. And if you were doing it yourself, it must have been amazing. Sometimes it must have felt great, right? We went down a little mini digression. I was talking about the Binghamton, we can't lose track of the Binghamton Crossbeast. I had to go back there. Binghamton Crossbeast. So for people who don't know, Keith Ranieri was what? Was he the musical director of the Binghamton Crosby's?

No. Well, how was this? No. How did it all? People at home won't know, but Keith Ranieri was... Oh, Ranieri, how do you say his name? I think it's Ranieri. Ranieri.

I think it's Ranieri, isn't it? Yeah. But it looks like it should be Ranieri or French name. Yeah. But he had a notorious cult. I think it's Reneary, isn't it? But it looks like it should be Raniere or French name. But he had a notorious cult, I think we can say that because they've been legally convicted and they're doing prison time, called NXIVM, advertised itself as a kind of self-empowerment business group for women? Or just a lot of women were in it. Yeah. After my encounter with them, it transformed into kind of a women's empowerment.

That was later, after your encounter with them. Yeah. Okay, so I'm fast forwarding just so people know the backdrop to the story, which is it turned out he was branding his initials on some of the members. You know that. Yeah, they're like pelvis area. On their pelvis. And there was sexual, inappropriate sexual behavior.

Yeah, I'm not going to make any claims here. But yeah, I think it was kind of a chili of a lot of different bad stuff. It was a lot of different stuff. But what was your association? I was just in this kind of innocent little acapella group and then we would get invited to different events you know like at some college or something and we would just go if they would pay for us and we got invited by this one organization to go to Albany to be part of a three-day acapella summit, you know, where all of the best you know, quote-unquote acapella groups from the region would come to study each other and practice.

But then when we got there, it was very much like a sensory deprivation kind of thing immediately just because the egg in Albany is this kind of brutalist complex that has no windows and you're just there for days. And we were subjected to kind of critiques from Keith and like Alison Mack and- He was his lieutenant at the time, the actress who was later on Smallville and she sort of became the face for the group in a way. She had some celebrity based on her acting work.

Yeah, but she's, yeah, she's very, I understand why she had the position that she did. She was like very personable and kind of like, she made everyone feel kind of comfortable in this weird way. But yeah, then we were on the second day of the event, we basically Googled Keith Raniere for the first time. Because you were getting weird vibes. We were getting very weird vibes. He would float around the complex and...

In strange clothes. You know, in like a... A dashiki? A caftan? Yeah, something, I'm trying to think of like what the... yeah, something like that. And all of his followers would just kind of fawn over him and they would talk about him like he was this deity and he just looked like kind of just some hippie guy. As you understood it to begin with with what was he there for?

That's what was so weird is that it was so vague what their relationship to acapella was but also What they wanted to teach us and like why they cared about it. I realized that They were trying to push this other social network. They created a social network called 10C, which you could still look on the internet like way back machine if you look it up. But it was just a questionnaire when you signed up that basically asked you some really personal questions and it was just a portal to enter what I think was going to become this acapella-based cult that he was starting. This whole thing was a slow burn, long game trying to recruit new impressionable young

kids into his cult. But when we were there, we discovered that he was a con artist and that there was this big Forbes article about how he had this previous business that scammed a bunch of people. So we basically, at the closing night party, we made a huge scene and called them out and started asking him about the different people that had committed suicide after taking his executive success programs and stuff. And it was it orchestrated or it just sort of happened organically? Our our intervention, it happened organically. It was just like it was groupthink kind of crowd violence kind of stuff.

It was just like, oh, this guy is bad. We know this much and we're just going to go like a wrecking ball into this place and try to confront him. And so you did it, you basically decided that you weren't going to slope away or fail. You were going to actually intervene and say something. It felt important. And then that started a major conversation with all the other acapella groups on the acapella message board at the time. And basically, I think because of what we did, Keith had to go underground for a little while and he had to like dissolve his acapella cult thing, because he realized that people were suspicious about

it now. And I think he went back into his little Albany complex and he then came up with the kind of women empowerment cult thing, because it was just like his thought process was I think what is popular now like what is that movie with Anna Kendrick, the a cappella movie, Pitch Perfect. pitch perfect, yeah. that movie had just come out and I think that like his brain is just like oh this is popular and these people are impressionable. I can recruit them, you know, in my weird way. Did he have any helpful things to say about acapella?

No. So was he going like, oh, you're a little off key or? His mantra was, acapella is best shared. Which is true. Which is just like, all this stuff is, you know, it's like impossible to argue with. But it's like. That was what he kept saying. But he also had his own acapella group that he had formed.

And he would sing with them. And they sang to us. And those videos I think are still on YouTube. They sing the most like rancid version of that song, Roxanne, I've ever heard. By the police. Yeah. It's a good-old song. And I'm listening, I think that's when I realized something was up.

Because when I heard them sing, it was the worst version of that song I'd ever heard. It was like, they were so off key, They didn't like, the tempo was off. It was just like, but they were, they were being like, we were supposed to be in awe of this group, you know? In the episode, you talk about how they then tried to defame you by saying that you had pooped in the hotel room. Yeah.

There was like a little knowing look that you gave. What was that about? I just did not think we were gonna get here. Yeah, there was like a little knowing look that you gave I just did not think we were gonna get here. What was that about? That was a bit of a response So you did do that? I think that there was some we were young we were we were we were really We were really upset. We were really immature and I I did some regrettable stuff in the hotel room that NXIVM rented for us. Yeah. There's a couple of good documentary series about NXIVM.

There's one called Seduced that was on stars. Yeah. That one I'm a bit more into because the vow is... Yeah, this was the vow which was actually, I think, they're stablemates of yours being on HBO. I mean, they're former NXIVM members themselves. Who made it? Yeah.

And I didn't see season two. I kind of... It's extraordinary that they made two seasons. I couldn't stomach. Yeah. You didn't care season two. I kind of... Extraordinary that they made two seasons. I couldn't stomach, yeah. You didn't care for the first season? No, because I think they were still very protective of what Keith was teaching. But also, like some of the people that worked on that show were the ones that blocked us,

blocked me from like using the material that I shot in Nevada at Burning Man because they were the ones that had exclusivity with them. So there's like, I don't know, I'm like very skeptical of that whole team. In the episode, how to find a public restroom. Yeah. By the way, we're in a huge, I love this because we're in a huge, I'm still going to get to the end of, we were talking about how to watch sports. Have I got it wrong again?

I watch the game. It's okay. I mean, they're all like, you know. So in the episode, how to find a public restroom, you end up going, kind of notionally, because you are into the bathroom, the toilet that's on this motor home. And then she turns out she's going to Burning Man. You're like, okay, can I come? And then you hop in and suddenly you're at Burning Man. And then you're in the hotel room and you reveal you've been prevented from using, you've got some amazing material,

you've filmed stuff that is incredible and you can't use any of it because some other filmmakers have got some copyright over the event. And it was the same guys who made the vow. Some of them. Yeah.

What was that all about? What were they making? I don't really care. I don't really care what they make. It's going to be, I just feel like there are hundreds of projects like that. That was quite painful for you because you play played off as a kind of light moment in the episode. No, I was like, I was like, volcanically upset when I realized that we weren't going to be

able to use any of that footage. Because I hated it there. But I was just like trying, but I was filming in these restrooms, like in 115 degree heat, just watching like all of the employees there, like vacuum suck all of the shit out of the porta potties for days. It was agony, you know, but I was just like trying to make a more, a doc maybe about just this kind of strange infrastructure that you have to have in a place like that. And it was so tonally, visually different than anything, obviously, I think that the

other team would have been making. But that fell on deaf ears. They just, none of it mattered to them, you know. Mason- Them being the other team. I did a film once where I was with some swingers and it turned out another guy was making a film at the same time. And I was like, it was an episode of Weird Weekends that was going to be watched on BBC2. It was a 50-minute TV show. But another guy had been immersed with this community and he was filming and he felt very threatened. And I understand that, but what I was saying to him was like, you know, this is no competition

for you. We won't go out in America. He was making an ambitious non-fiction feature film over a period of months and we were going to be in and out in a matter of days. Wait, wait, wait. So you're filming the same kind of poly... Yeah, basically we had overlap with two or three contributors. So he felt like, his feeling was like, I don't want anyone else filming, I mean, my people and I don't really want

another project to exist. You can't be too precious about ownership of a subject or subject matter because it's like if you're not, if you're worried about someone else making a documentary about the same thing, then I think that's a sign that maybe you don't have anything really unique to say, like stylistically, that like what you're doing can be reproduced by somebody else with a different team. To me, what gives me peace of mind is that even if I do see another doc crew following the same people, I feel like there's no way that their work is going to go on the same journey that mine is. So it makes me feel a little better.

When I was at the Cryogenics conference, a 50-year anniversary of this Cryogenics company, there was a full other doc team there. And I was really upset at first because they're just hard to shoot around because they were like, we were shooting the same events. But I found a way to shoot around them and ended up becoming just friendly with them instead of antagonistic because it was just the best policy I guess. The best documentary portrayal of that whole scenario is Ben Berman's film The Amazing Jonathan. Did you see that? Oh, that's interesting. Where he's filming with this magician called The Amazing Jonathan. And then like 10, 15

minutes in he realizes another crew is kind of filming a documentary on the other days. And then he realizes there's a third crew. And like there's so there's at least three different crews all filming the definitive biopic of this magician. He's like, Jonathan, what are you doing? Like, we can't all be making this film and they've all got the same scenes. It's a great example of, which, you know, it doesn't always work, but he's sort of making this, the process of getting the story, the story. Yeah. But it's strange now that we're in this world where, because you and I, I mean, you're a

bit younger than me, we've lived to see how first HBO and then Netflix and then other streamers have taken documentaries out of the little ghetto that they were in, sort of artistic sort of ivory tower and brought it to a mass market. But part of that is, is suddenly like it's worth millions to have access to a certain story. And so serial killers' wives are getting chased by agents so they could be signed up for TV deals. Do you hear about that one? That was the Long Island. Do you remember the, did you hear about the Long Island? The Gilgo.

Yeah, the Gilgo Beach murders. Apparently, yeah. Apparently the wife of the alleged murderer was besieged with show business offers. Oh yeah. I mean, I understand why it's happening. It's quite weird though. I get it as well. I mean, to an extent. But you know, you've also done like kind

of very topical stuff, you know, also. But in a unique and interesting way, though, like, you know, referring the headlines. I tend to think like if it's in the headlines, it's too late. But though increasingly, I sort of feel like maybe that was wrong. I mean, there's like the Saville stuff. But with Sal, so with Jimmy Saville, there's a few examples. Another is Joe Exotic. There's been three or four where...

But you were before that wave even. Yeah. So with Jimmy Saville, I did it 12 years before he was unmasked as a sex offender. With Joe Exotic, it was whatever it was, like 10 years before it went viral as an internet phenomenon on Netflix. Whether it's through accident or a little bit of nows, I've identified some stories that have then blown up and become huge, but at the point they become huge, you're just at the end of a long line of people trying to get the access. And I never really want to be in that position. Yeah.

It's like the more civilian I think that the kind of characters are, I think the more interesting it is a lot by the way? Great. Good. I might need some more water if anyone's... If you're listening out there, some more water for John please. In the episode about how to find a public restroom, you arrive at like a little swampy area of New York.

The hole. The hole, which is alleged to be below sea level. And so feces and fecal water is sort of bubbling up from the ground. And there's a couple of guys living there, they say, we're off the grid. You know, after the apocalypse, we're going to be out here with the only ones who are going to know how to live. And you don't know what's gone wrong in their lives, but you suspect something significant. And I got a little freeze-saw of like, wow, I'd like to spend time with those guys. That was hard to spend time in that area because, yeah, I wanted to spend more time too, but

it is a really shady area. Maybe shadier than I let on in the episode because there were people actively flipping cars when we were there. Flipping meaning? Escalade would show up and then they would take off the plates, like strip, like, you know, VIN and stuff and then send it back out, you know. And there were people asking us what we were doing and it was really tense at a couple of moments.

But thankfully we had a relationship with those guys and they said that we were okay to these other people. In general, there are a few exceptions, but in general you don't make an issue of getting access. It's not like we struggled to get in and you don't also foreground conflict. There's a couple of times when people say, I don't want you filming me. I don't give you permission. In fact, one of them is in that same restrooms episode.

You arrive at, is it a Reese's Pieces? It's a very, I couldn't quite make out what it was. It was some, it was a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup pop-up It was a Reese's peanut butter cup pop-up experience on Canal Street in Chinatown in New York. And did they throw you out? Yeah. Because, yeah, one thing I didn't... Yeah, they kicked me out, yeah.

Go on. Well, I went in there asking for a bathroom, but then they didn't have one. And then they had this weird experience set up where it was called like a swap shop where you give that you bring the idea is you bring them something and they give you a candy in return and it could be anything that you give them. And you know, it was supposed to be cute. Like you get you bring them, you know, like a fork or just like something you don't really want. But I went out and, this is so

mean, basically brought back like a fake rat, you know, like in a bag. A fake dead rat. Yeah, a fake dead rat, you know, to get a free candy back. And they got really, really upset by that. And that's when they threatened to call the police. So I condensed it in the episode. Because you could have put that in, but I assume you didn't because it felt a bit mean. It felt mean and I feel weird even admitting it now. None of us gets it right all the time.

It wasn't a real dead rat. No, no, I get it. But they were upset by it and that wasn't the reaction that you wanted, obviously. You weren't trying to upset them. It's painful when you upset someone without meaning to. It can be quite painful. I'm assuming that's what happened. Or you just get annoyed with them?

Well, this was like when, you know, I was also working with Nathan Fielder. So like, we were always like thinking of kind of strange things to do that didn't always make it into the show. Yeah. Do you choose to dial down conflict at any times? One of the things I'm conscious of is that there's moments of conflict, but by and large, it doesn't feel high conflict. If you were, so with respect to the,

it's called the hole, is that? Yeah. With the respect to a place like the hole where you're conscious there's this kind of criminal activity going on in the background, is there a version of what you shot in which you could have made more of that? It's almost a cliche of documentary making

that you'd ramp up something that's going on, and I thought it was time to leave, and I wasn't sure what was going on. I mean, these are the cliches I use. You pan around, I was conscious something was going on in the background. Yeah, after I started making the show and kind of writing like more like in a more factory kind of way,

like I started to then I would watch your stuff and I would be like, like, oh, wow, yeah, maybe it is just like a crutch. The whole like, like certain certain phrases like like I started to think, you know, it's hard to avoid. It's hard to avoid. And I think when I look at my older shows, it's usually the writing that I find fault with. Well, you're a little cheekier, I think, in your earlier stuff. Yeah. It's either cheeky or just lazy. I shouldn't do myself down too much. But you know, well, I'd had a nice time talking to, you know, Jimmy, the pitch man for the infomercials. But it was time to meet someone else. I'm like, really, that's the all you've got to say to get you to the next place.

But you know, it's something you just got to keep moving. Sometimes you know, sometimes there's a temptation to, you know, do a George Lucas and go back and rewrite certain things. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't Lucas. You can't Lucas. Never Lucas, the bumper sticker says.

So you mentioned Nathan Fielder. He's the executive producer on the show. And in the narrative around your success, he's sometimes depicted as a kind of, whether it's a fairy godmother, godfather, a mentor or a discoverer or how would you describe, but well like you, he's managed to do something on television that is distinctive, that's changed the grammar and that can credibly be described as having art, like being close to art. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And it's most famous probably for Nathan For You, his tongue in cheek business advice program. But Nathan also made a series called The Rehearsal that was kind of further into, whereas Nathan View kind of has some of the hallmarks of a prank show. The rehearsals- Which yeah, he doesn't like. He doesn't like that characterization?

No, no, no, no. Go on. He hates it. Well- characterization? No, no, no, no. Go on. He hates it. Well, I mean, it's, yeah, I mean, in the same way that like, when I hear the word mockumentary, I like, it makes my blood boil. Really? You know, I find that to be the most odious way to describe the work. Mockumentary which I think probably is the worst of all genres.

Taking the worst of non-fiction and the worst of fiction. I mean, Christopher Guest can do it and that's it. Barely. Barely. He can barely do it. Like Spinal Tap is obviously brilliant, but I don't much care for any of the others. No. I mean, I just watch, well, For Your Consideration wasn't like a documentary, a fake documentary.

It was more just like... I didn't see that one, but best in show... Yeah, best in show. Waiting for government. I mean, you're like relying on the strength of the talent, you know, of the actors in there, you know, but without that, like, I don't know. I just, I want to say definitively now if you're out there making a mockumentary stop, please. But who's called how to a mockumentary?

I've seen it mentioned like that like here and there, but I think that maybe their definition of a mockumentary was a little different. But to me, a mockumentary is like something kind of pretending to be a documentary, not a documentary that mocks people. I think that's how they were maybe defining it. Got you. And with respect to Nathan and Nathan Few, so has he said, how dare you call it a prank show? I don't know.

We were talking about it one day. We've talked about it a few times where someone would characterize it as a prank show in a review or something like that. And we'd be reading some reviews where we were both kind of cross-listed or something. And that would really upset him because it is much more artistic. And it is like, I mean, that's what attracted me to all the stuff to begin with. You know, I was such a huge massive fan of Nathan for You, just because it did something

that was like formally very familiar, you know, like visually and everything. But the kind of content was just had this kind of strange, like bizarre quality to it that like kind of lampooned all this stuff that you're used to. Mason- The premise is he's giving business advice to struggling businesses, but the advice is so strange and hilarious. Kline- But you know, it is, even though there is a lot of like humor and stuff in there. Like knowing him, he is working through something real, you know, and I really sense that in the work. So, yeah, I think that is definitely

what sets it apart. Mason- I totally agree, and I think that's a good way of putting it. How sensitive are you to reviews in general and criticism in general? I feel confident with my decisions I make with the work. And I really don't think about criticism that much. I mean, the stuff that would really hurt me is if someone from the work had a serious problem with it. That's what I was really worried about when I started the show. I thought I was about to make A Thousand Enemies in the city of New York, just because my style is very voyeuristic

in that way and I didn't know how people were going to take, you know, like, that kind of representation. Mason- But at the same time, you put yourself in there. So it's, if you were sort of sitting in judgment in a kind of rarefied and antiseptic way, I'm the invisible auteur. Greg- Yeah, it would be a much different flavor. Mason- But you're there, you're like struggling with various things, living in what I assume is your real apartment and confessing aspects of, you know, being in a, in a a cappella group or your girlfriend pops up in a bit and you see, you know, you go through a lot of life changes in a way that feels like, look, I'm down here as well.

Like I'm not holding, and obviously you have more control because you're editing and putting the shows together, but it feels like there's an appropriate level of vulnerability on your part as well. Yeah, I try to, because I mean, these people are revealing a lot, you know, and that's, I do want that just because it's, I mean, that's the kind of curiosity I think that any journalist or, you know, you're just like trying to get to. But I always want to at least match, like match the reveal, like whatever they're revealing. I want to match it personally with something

that happened to me or that's currently going on in my life. Just so it feels like a bit more level because, you know, it's also just like a very much just a mental imprint, as close to a mental imprint of like my thought process in the moment, you know, like when I'm editing, I just like, I really just want to just somehow display what I was feeling when someone was confessing something to me. And I feel like I can, in my normal life, I feel like I can be a bit of a cynic.

And so much of the work is me just trying to override that in certain ways and just being like, I am here and this is the group in front of me and I just maybe don't relate to them immediately, but part of me is in there, part of all of us is in here and I just need to figure out what that is, just to remove the cheap shot element from anything, just because there is a wrong way to do it. There is the kind of daily show approach where you're just one punch line after another, and it's just not humanistic. It's not like... Fine margins. In the sense of sometimes you could see it as a segment on a daily show or on a breakfast TV show or a magazine show. Meet the guy who's been collecting balls of

twine for more than 50 years. Yeah. I watch these reality shows, whether it's like Hoarders or anything like that, and I feel like they just waste such interesting people and their stories. And they just put them into this one little basket and then they film with them and they have their single purpose. But there's this whole galaxy within all these people and I feel like they're just like being burned through in this reality, you know, in this like kind of reality machine and, and, and they're not being given the time where we get to actually see the dimensionality

of these people, you know. Dignity. Yeah. But you know, there's also like, you know, the Janet Malcolm argument, you know, like with the journalist and the murderer, you know, I'm sure you're familiar of course, where it's like, I do the opening. What's the opening line? I forget. I don't know what the do you know? Any journalist who isn't too stupid to realize it or something like, or too drunk on their own virtue, it's not that, or too self-important, has to recognize that what he does is fundamentally immoral?

Or like exploitative or immoral or something like that. She doesn't really mean journalism. She means immersive long-form journalism in which you cultivate a relationship with a subject with the agenda of ultimately telling the truth whether or not it kind of conflicts with the relationship that you have. In other words, it's a seduce and betray style of filmmaking or journalism. Yeah. I try not to be that naive where I know there is something extractive happening and the relationships often don't last much longer than what's on screen just because of the

sheer volume of stuff you do. I also just like to admit that that is an aspect of it. I do respect that idea in a way that you do have to admit to yourself as a long-form journalist sometimes that this is an unnatural relationship and that maybe you are after something, no matter how ethically you're doing it. It was morally indefensible. Maybe that was the phrase. Was that the phrase? Yeah, maybe that's a little strict. When you think about times when you've been really happy doing your work, like I'm thinking

mainly on location, in the field, like gathering material, where does your mind go to? It's always that high that I'm chasing of capturing something that you're the only person there that you feel like is seeing this thing. I mean, one of the most euphoric moments I had during the whole production of the show was right after I like ambushed the CEO of an energy drink company at his house and he let me in. That was in How to Drink Wine. Yeah, How to Appreciate Wine. And then he gave us this whole interview and when I left, it felt like I had just Like there was some kind of bank robbery that just happened and and I you know, I got the bag

You know, and what was it? Do you think? It was just a crazy risk, you know like breaking and entering to this millionaires house and he happened to be having a Bridgerton themed baby shower for his wife. And he let you film the whole thing. And in moments like that, that is like the synchronicity of everything. Or even there was the one episode where I, in How to Throw Out Your Batteries, where I encountered

this sex offender in the city and then we have this whole interview where he's talking about people feeling disposable, especially on the registry and stuff like that. And then this garbage can that he had previously commented on that was at this bus station, like the worst bus station in the city, this garbage can just ignites in flames and burns down the whole bus station. And it was just the most perfect metaphor for everything that had yet to intersect up until that point. And there are just moments like that where it is a horrific thing that you're witnessing, but it just feels like there's something manifested.

I don't know. I mean, yeah. Just by thinking about something hard enough and by trying to do it enough, the world, the universe just provides you with it, like somehow. And I really am not, I've never been a believer in stuff like that, but it's just time and time again with the show, like it has happened. Should we talk for a second about how did it all come together for you? Because I know you'd gone to film, you'd studied film in school, then you had some jobs like private investigator, you worked at a home shopping

channel for a while. Yeah, I worked for doing infomercials. I liked having a job where I could emotionally vacate and not have to think about it at all when I left and just devote all my Free time to making my own stuff, you know, so meanwhile you're living where? I'm living in this cinder block, you know like former tombstone factory in Kind of Ridgewood area. I should mention your your mom had, who was a teacher, your dad was a systems analyst.

You grew up in Long Island? Yeah. So then how does it happen that you get a show on HBO? Like it feels like you went from nought to a hundred, right? I know you did an apprenticeship. Meanwhile, you're doing your own films, right? And you're obviously making a lot of films growing up. How did you make the leap?

How did that all take place? I think it was just by never stopping making the work. I would try to like, the whole how-to project was an experiment for me from the beginning, just to like see, because I like hated the sound of my own voice, I hated my written word, and I was afraid to like kind of combine any of that stuff. So I started making like the how-to stuff just as a kind of a sketch, you know sketch to begin with. And I would just put it online for free. And to me it was like, if they were good,

then people would watch it and share it with one another. But if they were bad, I would just find out the hard way. And, but I have like never promoted anything. I've always just like put it online just as a way for me to kind of crowdsource the archiving of this material in a way also. But yeah, and then I just did that for long enough and just I think made enough friends generally within the world that it was sent to Nathan just through a mutual friend and it really spoke to him.

And I think people just like to feel like they've discovered something, you know, like all my favorite stuff is stuff that I've like, I feel like, you know, I've discovered like including your stuff and, and, and I think the worst thing that someone can do, especially when they're starting out, is to create barriers to the work. And because there's so much to compete with, and if you really believe in whatever the thing is, you should make it as available as possible,

especially if it doesn't cost any money to make. And that's what I love about documentary, is that you don't have to spend any money making it, really. Like, it could just be whatever you want it to make. And that's what I love about documentary is that you don't have to spend any money making it really. Like it could just be whatever you want it to be. I mean, I've seen an early how-to which was about getting a film into, or getting to Sundance. Oh yeah.

Which is like, it's a short issue, it's like 10 or 15 minutes. But it felt tonally, you know, in terms of the writing and the aesthetic, quite close to where you arrived. So I'm curious what you feel Nathan did. You think I could have done it without him? No, no, he really like, he, I didn't know how to tell a story. I could do a 10, 15 minute thing. I didn't mean that. Did it sound bitchy like what I was saying? No, not at all. Not at all. I was being a bitch. No, he, Nathan helped to sculpt everything. Like he, Nathan's a really good storyteller. I was so stubborn and I thought

that I knew how my work was made, you know, but I was just so wrong and Nathan really beat it out of me. You know, can we, I know we're very close with kind of, you know, we're, we will shot. Please buckle in your seat belts. We will shortly be landing. If you need to use the bathroom. No. So I think there was, here's where I'm going to arrive. I sometimes think of the, you know, like the happy times I've been filming and it's awful

maybe to confess, but it's like, it's been in very, sometimes twisted and dark situations, but in which I feel like I have a privileged glimpse or some level of intimacy. And the phrase is intimacy without commitment or intimacy without accountability. It's some version of safe intimacy, right? And so just putting that there, then a phrase that came up was, you know, in one of your other interviews where you said, I have a lot of social anxiety and the camera is very much this tool that gives relationships purpose in some way, I'm processing stuff, and which also resonates with what you were saying about Nathan and how he is dealing with real things. Even though there's elements that are clearly tongue in cheek or, you know, as a joke, but there is something real. And I'm just curious, like, what you think you're

dealing with? with the fact that I do have a hard time with close relationships of mine, asking questions sometimes. I've heard this before and it's something I'm trying to work on where I think there's some emotional distance sometimes. And whether it's like family or longtime friends and I use the work, I think, sometimes as a way to, I think, be more kind of inquisitive and kind of like ask more questions. And that bleeds into my real life in ways sometimes. But it's really just, I think the act of asking questions is like a big kind of important kind of health, like emotional health routine for me.

But also, you know, it is a crutch at the same time. And although it does, it gives the relationship purpose, but I think it also like does create a distance at the same purpose, but I think it also does create a distance at the same time. There is this closeness and distance thing that has always been a dilemma for me. Yeah, I think that's what I got right now. Because I had something else. Something you want to say? Or? Yeah.

Do you know, you don't have to spill your guts, by the way. That's okay. I think that goes without saying, right? I mean, the question was why this is is, I suppose it's to do with emotional sustenance, right? Like, it's the sense in which I feel like, you know, sometimes life takes place behind a glass a little bit, maybe everyone has a degree of that. I'm not a brilliant friend, I don't think. I find social arrangements quite stressful. I probably have a degree of social anxiety.

And there's something about having, you know, it's an enormous privilege and kind of like in the work that I do, I arrive and I, because the groundwork has been laid, especially in the kind of thing I do where I have a producer who's already opened up various avenues of access and I'm suddenly sitting with someone.

And if it's going well, a set of things take place, a sequence of things take place in which I feel like I'm just getting an insight into someone or into their life and I'm just transported away from my day-to-day concerns and all of the things that I worry about disappear for a while. And it's almost like I'm on a vacation from myself a little bit. So aspects of what I think makes me good at the work that I do also overlap with qualities that I have that are probably a little antisocial or a little bit to do with not being brilliant at kind of the basics of human intercourse. Yeah, I mean, all the work is a way of kind of sublimating these kind of very intense emotions and I think that's why, whether it's about social anxiety, I

mean, that's what Small Talk started about too, because Nathan and I both had very intense, we both had very intense social anxiety. This was the pilot episode. Yeah. Yeah. And it was just like, really just getting into all of these kind of nightmare scenarios that are pretty banal, but are really like emotionally stressful for someone with social anxiety. And I just like that, I think that's why there's such like kind of deep irony within certain kind of juxtapositions within it.

But they're also like universal feelings I would hope and that like I think we all kind of share a lot of this, like a lot of this anxiety and that we probably view more things the same way than we realize. You know. Okay, welcome back. Hope you enjoyed that. Very nice to have someone come in who well, enjoys my work. And was so appreciative and actually to geek out a bit as well on documentary making. If you're in the UK, you can watch all three series of how to on BBC iPlayer and also you can watch my back catalogue if you want, including the episode about the

sex offenders called Among the Sex Offenders. Talking about my stuff, I should be talking about John's amazing work. And they kind of do, although I was joking about the fact that, oh, I needed to see them all, because there was a few I hadn't seen when I spoke to him. And since then, I have watched them all. And there is a kind of build, there is a sort of a series arc. And then across the whole three seasons there's sort of an arc. And so, and the last few are really good. There's one about that condition where you're allergic to life, you know, and there's a town where all these people have congregated because they're having a reaction to whether it's like radio waves or whatever it is is because I think it's a controversial diagnosis.

And in fact, what's funny ish in the episode is that there's various people claiming they have the illness but saying that the other person who claims that they have the illness isn't legit. So there's this strange disparagement of each other Like they haven't really got it, they're faking. Everyone is calling everyone else a faker. We talked about NXIVM and The Vow, the documentary series which I haven't seen all of. There's also one called Seduced, which is pretty good. What I did watch recently was a documentary series called Stolen Youth about a kind of cult that existed at Sarah Lawrence, the American University. I recommend that.

It's on Disney+. I watch anything that's about cults, basically. If it's a decent documentary, I'm an easy date. Is that the term? You'll find me a receptive audience. The Janet Malcolm quote, which is always being mentioned, I got it pretty much right. The quote is from the journalist and the murderer from 1990. And it is, every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on, knows that what he does is morally indefensible.

Yeah, that's a bit much, isn't it? I would love to talk to Nathan Fielder. If Nathan's listening, he's got a new season of the rehearsal out on HBO, I believe. Would he come on the podcast? I do know him a little bit. I'll just send him a message. I feel like he doesn't readily agree to doing many interviews, like deep dive interviews. I think almost as part of his craft, or his art if you like, that he wants to maintain a little bit of, is it mystery or distance or wants the work to speak for itself? Definitely watch Finding Francis, which was the season finale. I know it was about maybe 70 minutes, almost feature length documentary in which he goes on the road with a Bill Gates impersonator

to track down his long lost love, the Bill Gates impersonator's long lost love, and then it just gets stranger as it goes on. It's genuinely kind of weird and funny and troubling in parts and famously got a great write-up by Errol Morris, the documentary maker, who kind of claimed it as a brilliant piece of art. So Nathan, let's hook it up. He might do it. What was it John said not to call him a prankster? Just don't call him a prankster.

Things that I don't like to be called. No, nothing. Faux naive. I'm fine. They call that. That's what they mainly call me is faux naïve BBC wacky presenter. Fine. Don't call me a podcast host. Lucky you. He didn't like that because it's like, how's the podcast? It always sounds faintly demeaning. How's the podcast?

Because everyone's got a podcast. People think they're being like, hi, Louis, how's the podcast? Like are you trying to make me feel small? I'm an esteemed filmmaker. I'm not. I'm a journalist, a broadcaster, and a podcast host. How's the podcast? How's the garden? Do you know what I mean? How it just feels small. I feel like it's important that I do other things with the podcast. If it was just podcast, don't be lame. Okay. When

you're in a hole, stop digging. That's it for now. Oh yes, credits. The producer was Millie Chu. It's a long suffering. The assistant producer was Amelia Gill. The production manager was Francesca Bassett and the executive producer was Aaron Fellows. The music in this series was by Miguel de Oliveira.

This is a MINDHASP production for Spotify.