Not weird... just wonderful

Louis Theroux has spent the last few years engaging in tepid conversations with celebs. But an explosive interview with Armie Hammer reminded us of his magic, says Adam White

- Adam White

Early on in the latest episode of his uncharacteristically tepid interview podcast for Spotify, Louis Theroux makes his celebrity guest squirm. This was perhaps unavoidable, for Theroux’s guest is the Call Me by Your Name actor, and now rampant denier of cannibalism allegations, Armie Hammer.

Theroux pushes him not only on the leaked text messages that suggested an erotic interest in consuming human flesh (a provocative joke, Hammer insists), but also the allegations of rape and sexual assault (consensual acts of non-consent, says Hammer) that engulfed the actor in 2021, effectively shuttering his movie career in the process.

“I’m not crazy about dredging up all of this stuff,” Hammer says at the end of the episode, released today. “For me, a lot of these issues have been resolved, whether it be legally or within myself. A lot of those waters have settled. [Talking about them] stirs up the water again unnecessarily.” Theroux, to his credit, stands his ground.

This lightly confrontational quality isn’t typical of Theroux right now. After rising to prominence with the sly, gawping docuseries Weird Weekends, Theroux made his bread and butter the discreetly probing documentary – nerdily umming and ahhing his way into often quite ghoulish truths, whether it involved living with the hate group known as the Westboro Baptist Church, or breaking bread with Jimmy Savile. (That encounter, notoriously, didn’t go as far as it probably should have – he’s since expressed regret.)

But since 2022, Theroux has largely focused on celebrity interviews, as if to refashion himself as a kind of British Marc Maron – a US podcaster who welcomes stars into his home for often innocuous, sometimes revealing, chats about their lives and careers.

The problem, though, is that Theroux isn’t very good at this. The Louis Theroux Podcast