If people trust me, I think it's because they understand that I'm not going for the cheap win...

LOUIS THEROUX has an incredible knack for getting people talking.

- RACHAEL DAVIS

Whether it's members of the infa- c mous Westboro Baptist Church in I the US, inmates at the notorious v San Quentin State Prison, people t with brain injuries or anorexia, or a famous faces like Stormzy and w Dame Judi Dench, documentarian's inquisitive charm and curious C nature sparks the most insightful of s conversations.

In recent years, Louis, 53, has been focusing his attention on r in-depth interviews with prominent figures in popular culture, both s through his podcasts - BBC Radio 4's Grounded with Louis Theroux and Spotify exclusive The Louis Theroux Podcast - and his BBC2 series Louis Theroux Interviews...

Interviews... is now on its second series, with six new episodes of whistleblower Chelsea Manning (the former US military analyst who leaked classified documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks), actress Dame Joan Collins, The Libertines' frontman Pete Doherty, and singer-songwriter Raye.

Here Louis reveals what's to come and his secret to getting his subjects to bare all.

How does this series of Louis Theroux Interviews... expand on the first?

I'm proud of the first series, but I was conscious that there was further we could go in terms of grit, and in the sense of having range within the choice of guests.

We have our first American guest, Chelsea Manning, who is also, in a sense, our first guest who, I guess, would fall more squarely within a kind of political realm of influence, rather than culture more generally.

With all of them, even in the past series, there was a sense like they all needed to be in addition to people they needed to be stories, people for whom there was something that we could get into, something that would resonate beyond their individual life.