Louis Theroux reveals he approached Andrew Tate for Inside the Manosphere Netflix documentary

Louis Theroux is stepping into the 'manosphere' in his first feature-length documentary for Netflix.

The documentary, now available to watch on Netflix, follows the documentarian as he travels across the globe to meet content creators at the extreme end of the manosphere.

Visiting the US and Spain, Theroux meets Harrison Sullivan (AKA HS Tikky Tokky), Myron Gaines, Nicolas Kenn De Balinthazy (AKA Sneako), Justin Waller and Ed Matthews – all of whom present their own ideas on traditional gender roles and values.

Throughout the documentary, Theroux mentions one man quite often: Andrew Tate. Friends to some of the aforementioned creators, Tate is a former professional kickboxer who gained notoriety for his controversial position within the manosphere, but does not appear in the Netflix film despite being approached.

During a Q&A following a screening of Inside the Manosphere, Theroux explained: "Access is critical. I sometimes joke I'm like a vampire, I have to be invited in. Unless you can talk to someone, then you might as well do with archives or something.

"The whole point of me in this context is that I can talk to people and hopefully get something different out of them as an interviewer and filmmaker."

Theroux noted a point when developing the documentary where they thought Tate may appear for an interview, sharing: "I had a long back and forth with Andrew Tate, voice notes and just weird peacock flexing from both of us, probably, and that didn't kind of go anywhere."

He continued: "I think I felt like the world was big enough and there were enough personalities there that we would find people that we needed. And it wasn't easy."

As seen in the documentary, following interviews with Theroux some of the contributors would become slightly reserved, unsure if they should continue – something director Adrian Choa could attest to.

Reflecting on filming the series, Choa said: "It was kind of, in a way, operating behind enemy lines, in the sense that, 'We are the mainstream media and we're just going to go and do a hit piece'.

"So like when Oli [Roy, producer] and I spent two weeks going up and down Miami, meeting different contributors, it was a kind of weird mixture of hostility, but also this need to be heard and understood."

He added: "For many of them, they've been banned off every major platform, so they kind of really wanted to get their message, or at least, kind of be seen by other people, to try and get their message across, but perhaps not be perceived in the way that it ends up being in the film.

"I think many of them didn't understand how they would be challenged in that way."

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Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere is available to watch on Netflix now. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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