Louis Theroux recalls being the 'straight man in a weird world'

Louis Theroux started his TV career as a "straight man in a weird world".

The 50-year-old documentary-maker has filmed various series during his award-winning career, including \'Louis Theroux\'s Weird Weekends\', but he now admits to going "too far" with his approach in the early days.

He shared: "When I look at my own motivations and my own journey, I am forced to face the negative alongside the positive: a tendency, when younger, to maybe be glib, to disarm with the aim of making light of people\'s deeply held beliefs, to act the clown, to make fun.

"That was part of how I saw my role, to be the straight man in a weird world, and there were times, looking back, when I see I may have gone too far."

Louis has explored a range of bizarre and controversial subjects during his career.

And the TV star has admitted to having an "attraction to the dark side".

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, Louis explained: "I also acknowledge my own sense of attraction to the dark side - the darkness of misguided beliefs and self-destructive behaviours.

"But - as I comment at the end of the programme dedicated to the dark side of pleasure - the aim of life shouldn\'t be to avoid mistakes, to be sober, righteous and godly in everything, to be pious and upstanding and utterly bland.

"You have to wrap your arms around the whole of life, and - at the risk of sounding like my Las Vegas self-help guru friend - view your missteps as an important part of your journey.

"And it may be my mistakes - or at least the challenges I endured in order to change - that, looking back, I\'m most attached to, because they suggested the possibility of doing things differently."