Now Showing: The Program from Captive Cinema [R13]

“THE PROGRAM” is Now Showing Nationwide
Distributed by CAPTIVE CINEMA. 

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Chris O’Dowd plays journalist David Walsh In The Program [R13]

Chris O’Dowd has become a bit of a disgruntled sports fan. His beloved Liverpool are in what seems like perpetual change and the arrival of Jürgen Klopp is far from a guarantee that the 25-year search for a Premier League title will end. At least he can’t blame Liverpool’s demise on other team’s cheating and that’s what’s really got his ire up. He’s been spending the past few months trying to work out the enigma that is Lance Armstrong, the cycling superstar who overcame cancer to win the Tour de France seven times. It was a unique achievement at arguably sport’s toughest endurance event. Then came the revelation that it was a house built on lies. 

In Stephen Frears’ The Program, O’Dowd plays journalist David Walsh, the man who refused to believe Armstrong’s lies, even when the cyclist successfully sued Walsh’s paper for libel, winning a multimillion-pound payout. O’Dowd has the same zealous belief that science and doping are making a mockery of sport. “For me as a sports fan, I have no interest in watching pharmacists and doctors competing to come up with the best concoctions,” says the Irish actor.

He has a similar disdain for Formula 1, because it relies so much on the technical prowess of the mechanics. O’Dowd’s main interest is the skill of the individual, which probably explains why he became an actor, being judged on his ability to mimic or bring a character to life, even when he’s part of an ensemble.

The 36-year-old is best known as a comic, a reputation that goes back to the flirting state patrol officer he portrayed in Bridesmaids. But he didn’t want to be known simply as the goofy comic. “Which is hard when it’s such a big movie,” he says of the 2011 hit. “And particularly stateside, when it’s probably what 90 per cent of the people know you from. But you always just want to find the best work. Not to tick a box. I ended up doing comedy by accident really. It’s not like it was a life plan or anything.”

O’Dowd was born in Boyle, County Roscommon. His father is a graphic designer and his mother a psychotherapist. He has brought many of his childhood tales to the screen in Moone Boy, the show he created for Sky TV. “I mean, we kind of look at it all... not through rose-tinted glasses, but certainly, I had a lovely childhood, so I wasn’t necessarily worried about dealing with issues from my past. There are moments when my family would be like, ‘That’s not how I fuckin’ remember it!’ But for the most part, the vast majority of it… relationship-wise it’s totally accurate to how I grew up. A lot of the stories kind of come and go. Some of them are based in reality and then you make them funnier in some way, or make them more interesting to watch.”

But he thinks the show’s now on its last legs. There are only so many stories he can tell about 11- and 12-year-old boys, although he has a Truffaut-esque desire to return to the characters when they are a bit older. One story he could put in, if he ever followed up that idea, is about a bike ride he went on, aged 14. “It was during the summer holidays. There was very little happening. I come from a very small place. I went with these two friends, John and Dermott. We cycled maybe 80 miles. It took two days. We pitched a tent. I’d forgotten about that. We pitched a tent and when we woke up we were in a traffic island.”

It didn’t put him off cycling, and when he was acting on Broadway in Of Mice and Men, opposite James Franco, he would cycle to work and back every night. On stage he became a big fan of his co-star. “James is great. I think he’s genuinely trying to do interesting things. Not everybody is. He takes a lot of flak for it, which I’ve never really understood. If he wasn’t so handsome, I think he’d be celebrated much more.”

But his recollection of playing a venture capitalist in the US drama series Girls is more down to earth. “It wasn’t an iconic show when I was doing it. It just felt like another kind of TV gig. You could tell that they’re all very smart, and it felt quite raw, which was nice… I’m kind of amazed to see it take off, and you don’t know that it’s going to be such a massive thing. But they really keyed into what people wanted.”

I’m left with the impression that giving people what they want is not O’Dowd’s objective. Otherwise he would be happily revelling in comic roles, rather than taking on meaty stage roles and playing journalists on a mission. He’s considered and serious and wants to challenge himself and people’s perceptions of him. Playing a journalist brings back memories of working on a student newspaper when he was young. “I wanted to be a journalist quite a lot when I was in school. And I didn’t get the grades to go to the journalism colleges… I don’t know how they were so hard to get into given the level of journalism generally.”

“Thanks,” I respond. To which O’Dowd lets out a hearty laugh. His wife, Dawn O’Porter, is a television presenter and they have just had their first child, Art. When he talks about Walsh, it’s in reverential tones: “He’s a great journalist with a lot of integrity.” And that’s how O’Dowd plays him in The Program

“THE PROGRAM” is released and distributed by CAPTIVE CINEMA.

SHOWING ON MARCH 2. NATIONWIDE!

Ben Foster wanted to be experience what it was to be Lance Armstrong in ‘The Program’ [R13]

The Program, director Stephen Frears's latest film, will likely go down as the most in-depth, uncanny depiction of the rise and fall of Lance Armstrong to date. Credit goes to actor Ben Foster, who went to insane lengths to become Lance, taking on intense months of training, riding the most treacherous legs of the Tour de France while filming, dramatically fluctuating his weight by 30 pounds to portray every point of his career, from the top of the podium to the battle with cancer, and even going on his own regimen of performance-enhancing drugs "to more deeply understand what this world was about," Foster says between screenings at the Zurich Film Festival. He did everything but speak with the film's subject man-to-man. "In so many words, Lance Armstrong was not interested in talking with me. I couldn't blame him at all. I wouldn't have wanted to talk with me either." 

Did playing Lance Armstrong give you a new found appreciation for cycling?

I appreciate the rigor it demands, but I have not been on a bicycle since we finished shooting because I've been pretty deeply traumatized. I hadn't cycled before and only had a limited amount of time to 

train. Simply said it was an aggressive training process.

What drew you to the project?

The interest for me was working with Stephen Frears. He's made so many kinds of movies. To my eyes I can't find a signature style of his. Lance, on the other hand, is very recognizable. To get the opportunity to explore a subject that I knew very little about while working with a master filmmaker was a rare opportunity.

Do you think people in the States are still hurt by Armstrong's story?

I do. From what I've heard and who I've talked to about it in North America, people get very emotional. They're upset about the subject. In Europe it seems that they've been able to process what Lance did, while in the U.S., we haven't done that yet. So far, I don't think Lance Armstrong has apologized in a way that is palatable to us.

What are your own thoughts on how his scandal played out?

My job is all about defending the people that I play. I had to rationalize what he did. Early on Stephen would half joke that he was going to call the film "The Stupid American." I thought that wasn't too generous a title. We had different views and I hope that actually translates in the movie, that there are always two sides to the story. It's a little more complicated than saying he's a liar and a doper. He's a man who raised a half billion dollars for cancer research. He won the Tour de France seven times in a row and he wasn't the only one doping, he was just better at it. He did everything better. He moved the needle in all aspects of the sport while also doing a lot of good. His bullying was bullying people who were threatening his empire, and that empire was saving lives. I think calling him just a gangster is ignorant.

What did you read and watch of his appearances to prepare?

I watched everything. He's so recognizable. Sitting that long on a bicycle, it's going to even change the way that you walk. What made his story so accessible was the way that he communicated. His rage was always pretty close to the surface. I was interested in both the persona and the man behind the persona. The loneliness that must occur with people like that who are at the top of their field. To answer your question, the joy of the job is to ask questions and then consider them in both an emotional and physical way. You find that he had certain mantras, speaking about the will to survive, the way to better yourself. I imagine that he was a guy who looked around the room and thought, "Nobody is working as hard as I am. Nobody is as determined."

Did you hear any stories that proved particularly insightful to who Lance Armstrong was as a person?

This isn't a biofilm. You hear anecdotal stories. I would have liked to have partied with Lance. He sounds like he was a lot of fun. He went hard. I'd be talking out of turn if I talked about some of the stories, but I was most touched by the work and attention he did give the cancer community. He'd call up people that he didn't know who were struggling with the disease and just talk to them for two hours. He would talk about the hope that you need to get better. His visits to the hospitals were very moving, my aunt started a foundation called Conquer Cancer"in Boston, Massachusetts. It's a subject that's important to a lot of people, and though right now he may be out of favor, it's important to return to the fact that he did put in the time. He did raise that money. It wasn't just a cancer shield. He tried to better the planet.

What kind of preparation did you do to re-create Armstrong's appearance and cycling?

I was in very good hands. I rode with people who had rode with Lance in the peloton during the Tour de France. They did their best to teach me how to look like he did. We had a computer program that had analyzed his position on the bike. Then we did the best to match my look and stats with his. I was also working with his nutritionist and his mechanic during his time on the Postal team. I worked with a wellness doctor who helped create a program of performance-enhancing drugs that I could do as safely as possible. I did that because I felt it was important for me to more deeply understand what this world was all about.

Cobbles are one of the more challenging aspects of the Tour. How did you face up with those?

We shot them in Belgium in the rain and mud. Insurance was not there on set that day, which was for the best because if you go down, you may break a knee, and then the film's not happening. But keeping the handlebars loose in the hand, and keeping your balance is the trick behind those. I really loved riding the cobbles though. It's brutal but fun.

The weight-changes were really impressive. How did you lose that much?

That was all me. That was a very grumpy me. I knew neither was going to last too long but I had about two weeks to go from one to the other. There wasn't the money to support a more gentle change. To start, I was lifting a lot of weights, then I had two weeks to basically cannibalize my body. Shooting in sequence would have been ideal, but we didn't have that luxury this go around. Weee! [Laughs.]

The first shot, of you at Alpe, d'Huez, is incredible. How did it feel to be there?

It was fucking scary. We are there shooting in the French Alps and I haven't told anybody about this but I have terrible vertigo. Terrible vertigo. I've dealt with it. I've done bungee jumping. I've done wirework, but it's a paralyzing fear. David Millar was one of our champions who made sure the details of the cycling were correct in the film. He was handling the opening shot. It was being filmed on a four-wheeler, with a steadicam on it. It was able to tilt and weave with us. They said, "Just head down the mountain." Then they were asking me to speed up! I was riding the brakes for the first few minutes, but finally I had this moment where I started passing the camera. The competition part of your brain starts to take over and you want to tear the mountain apart. It was those moments where I started to understand the drug of the sport. The first bit of intensity in my face, though, was not, "I'm going to win." It was, "I'm going to die."

What do you think that you got out of this experience that will be useful in the rest of your career?

Very little scares me now. Once you ride down a mountain like that and don't die, it's hard to be scared anymore.

“THE PROGRAM” is released and distributed by CAPTIVE CINEMA.

SHOWING MARCH 2. NATIONWIDE!

THE PROGRAM: The Rise and fall of the seven times Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong.

It is 1993 and 21 year old Lance Armstrong (Ben Foster) is making his debut in the Tour De France. The Sunday Times journalist, David Walsh (Chris O’Dowd) interviews the young Lance over a game of table football. Lance is determined and hugely self-confident, as well as extremely competitive. Chatting with his press colleagues afterwards, David tells them how cocky Lance was. When they ask if he is a contender, David says he absolutely is – in the one day classic races.




On the starting line at a Belgian one day race, Johan Bruyneel (Denis Menochet) tells the young upstart Lance that he will never win as others have more red cells in their blood – they are doping. The race plays out as Bruyneel predicted. Meanwhile in a lecture hall, Dr Michele Ferrari (Guillaume Canet) is learning about trials of the drug EPO. During the race, Lance watches hopelessly as three members of one team drop everybody else and easily finish in the top three places. At the lecture, Ferrari asks about the use of EPO in sport, but is told that would be unethical. Ferrari shrugs. At the Belgian race press conference, Ferrari is on stage with the winners, a member of their team. Questioned as to problems with the use of EPO, he once again dismisses all concerns.

Lance tries to convince his hesitant teammate Frankie Andreu (Edward Hogg) that they have to use EPO to be in with a chance. Lance approaches Ferrari and tells him he wants to join his “program”, but the doctor dismisses him telling him that he doesn’t have the right physique to be a good climber.

Lance buys EPO for his team at a pharmacy in Switzerland. A year later, back at the Belgian one day classic, it is now Lance dropping the peloton and winning the race by a huge margin.

However after the celebrations, Lance starts to cough up blood. His doctor diagnoses testicular cancer, at the third, and final, stage. Treatment begins and Lance is subjected to gruelling rounds of surgery and chemotherapy. He pushes himself even when at his lowest and tries to walk down the hospital corridor, but collapses into a wheelchair.

As he recovers, Frankie and his wife Betsy (Elaine Cassidy) visit Lance in hospital. A doctor arrives for a consultation, and Lance tells his friends to stay. Lance makes a slow but determined recovery. He travels to Ferrara, Italy, to the home of Dr Ferrari. Through his illness, he has lost the weight required of him and Ferrari is convinced enough by his will to win to take him on. He subjects Lance to a huge range of tests, analysis and training exercises so that he is no longer ‘confined by the limits of his physiology’ and Lance reaches peak fitness, getting to grips with some of the substances and doping methods which would propel his career forward along the way.

During this time, the so-called ‘Festina affair’ has erupted after a team soigneur has been caught with performance enhancing drugs. This has led to police raids across the Tour and the discovery that drug use is rife. Ferrari and Armstrong laugh at them for getting caught. Lance brings Bruyneel on board as director, explaining that following his illness the only team that would take him are the very minor US Postal team. Bruyneel says that they have to go out to win, and Lance says that after his cancer he never wants to come so close to losing again. Lance, Bruyneel and Ferrari head up the team’s rigorous training programme, at altitude. Lance reunites with agent Bill Stapleton (Lee Pace) who had spotted Lance’s commercial potential before he got sick. Bill now sees an ever more potent story, especially when Lance passionately announces that he wants to start a cancer charity.

It is 1999. David in his press car banters about whether this year really is to be rebranded the Tour of Renewal, after last year’s drugs farce. They say that Armstrong has risen from the dead and as an early supporter David says that he really thinks Lance can win a stage. There is jubilation when Lance does win the opening stage. David writes about the ensuing mountain stage. Wearing the winner’s yellow jersey, Lance starts to attack on the Galibier climb; he breaks away with tremendous power leaving the peloton far below.

There is excitement in the press room. David alone is silent. Lance reaches the finish in Sestriere way ahead of the peloton. His previous best in the mountains was 39th. David reminds his colleagues out last year’s doping scandal and that the speeds have gone up this year, but they don’t listen. They reply that the racers wouldn’t be able to hide it. David retorts that Lance rode so fast up the steep mountain that he had to use his brakes. He talks to a young rider who, according to his physiology, should be faster than Lance and who shares his own suspicions with David. Lance then seeks out this young rider and warns him off.

Taking EPO has become part of Lance’s regular race time routine. Motorman delivers the drugs and the team take them in a systematic way. Lance is blasé, asking his soigneur Emma O’Reilly (Laura Donnelly) to dispose of his needles. The TV commentators confidently talk about how the riders are now clean. Lance asks Emma to cover the needle mark on his arm. When the so-called ‘vampires’, the UCI drugs testers, come to check Lance, they are duped into waiting, during which interval Lance is hooked up to a drip to dilute the presence of substances. Emma is massaging Lance when he takes a call to say that one of his tests has come back positive for testosterone. He deals with the problem by ordering a pre-dated prescription of a saddle sore cream, and then jokes that Emma knows enough to bring him down. Whilst promoting his Livestrong cancer charity, Lance recalls the moment in the hospital where he attempted to walk down the corridor but in his retelling of the story, he refuses the wheelchair.

The next year, he wins the Tour again. At a book signing of his autobiography It’s Not About the Bike, Lance seems to feel uneasy around the cancer survivors that he has inspired. Dr. Ferrari is raided by the police and charged with criminal conspiracy. This news strengthens David’s case against Lance being clean as he knows that Lance had visited Ferrari before his comeback, but the doctor is notably absent in Lance’s book. David is granted an interview with Lance, but Lance turns up with Bill at his side, and in abrasive form. And still the newspaper won’t run a story by David for lack of hard evidence.

Rising star Floyd Landis (Jesse Plemons) is signed to the US Postal team, and tasked with protecting Lance. Floyd comes from a Mennonite community and had to be very determined to forge a career as a cyclist against his family’s beliefs. Lance initiates Floyd into The Program and in 2002 the team are as powerful as ever and Lance triumphs yet again. By now there are more effective tests so Lance and team are also transfusing their own blood to avoid detection.

In the 2003 Tour, Lance achieves his fifth win. Lance is still surreptitiously meeting Ferrari, although Ferrari has now been found guilty and banned from sports and medical practice. Cyclist Felippo Simeoni has testified against him, so Lance approaches him during the next stage and blatantly threatens to destroy him. Floyd watches on with increasing discomfort, but Lance is not to be deterred. The team have now become blasé about their doping: their bus pulls over on a Pyrenean roadside for them to hook up to drips in the midst of the cavalcade. Only Floyd is becoming increasingly uneasy. The UCI call a meeting with Lance to discuss an EPO test. The official appears anxious as he tells Lance that the test was borderline but not conclusive. Stapleton and Lance are obviously not happy but Lance seems calm, he says that he will leave it to them to do what is best for the sport.

Lance prepares for a press conference anticipating the inevitable question about doping. Once on stage, he is steely eyed and defensive. He reiterates his mantra that he has never tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. David is in the room and probes Lance about the image of cycling and his association with a doctor so heavily embroiled in doping. Lance puts him down and dismisses these challenges, telling them all that they all have to fall back in love with cycling. Floyd watches on from the back of the room. Later he confronts Bruyneel about the drugs and about the untouchable Lance with his “cancer shield”. Unperturbed, Bruyneel tells Floyd that he can always leave.

Betsy has now heard about David and the two of them talk. She tells him about the conversation in the hospital room, and David in turn reports this to his editor. Now David has started to attract attention. Emma contacts him and passes on all the incriminating evidence that she has. Cyclist Stephen Swart also has information to support David’s case. David has now gathered enough evidence for his editor to finally agree that he can publish his story in the newspaper, under the headline ‘LA CONFIDENTIAL’.

David is invited to Texas by Bob Hamman (Dustin Hoffman), an insurer for the US Postal team who now has doubts that Lance is entitled to the $5 million bonuses that he is owed for his Tour triumphs. If Lance is cheating in races, then he is also cheating him. Lance is incensed by David’s story. He rages about Emma, who he presumes tipped David off, calling her an ’alcoholic whore‘, and gives Stapleton a series of commands – to threaten Emma, get Frankie to ‘muzzle‘ his wife, ’stonewall‘ Walsh, find out who he travels with and freeze him out, offer David’s American publisher Lance’s new book to create a conflict of interest. Lance rants that he will not be brought down.

Whilst Lance brings a libel case against The Sunday Times, an arbitration case is mounted against Lance by Bob Hamman. Stapleton threatens Frankie, and Lance defames him to potential employers. At arbritration, Lance arrogantly and angrily deflects all the questions. Bruyneel warns off David’s colleagues at the Tour. The Sunday Times loses to Lance and pays out £300,000 in damages. Hamman also loses to Lance and is forced to pay out the $5 million bonus money, but he tells Stapleton that he knows Lance has lied under oath. Stapleton smirks that Lance will retire and then nothing can touch him.

At what will be his final Tour’s opening press conference in 2005, Lance singles out David and insists that ‘extraordinary allegations demand extraordinary proof‘. He declares that David is taking attention away from the fight against cancer. As they leave, David is told by his colleagues that he can’t travel with them as usual. It would make life too difficult for them. The other reporters drive away, leaving David unable to follow the Tour. Lance wins his seventh consecutive Tour.

The following Tour is won by Floyd, but he gets caught using testosterone. Although he denies it (unconvincingly), he is stripped of his title. Floyd returns to his community. Meanwhile Lance’s time is now spent making mindless commercials and giving corporate speeches.

Lance decides that after four years, he is going to make a Tour comeback. Bruyneel tells him that it is a bad idea - he is too old, it’s vain and they have got away with it until now. But Lance won’t quit, he says he is coming back for the fight against cancer.

Floyd, who is still ostracized from the sport, calls imploring Lance to have him on the team, but Lance dismisses him - sorry, you got caught. The Tour does not go well for Lance. He can’t keep pace with the new star on his team, Alberto Contador, who goes on to win, leaving him in third place. Contador then humiliates him further by telling the press that he allowed Lance his third position.

Meanwhile feeling like he has no options, Floyd decides to turn himself in to the US Anti-Doping Agency’s Travis Tygart. He exposes Lance, who is finally recognized as the leader in a culture of doping. The tide is finally turning against Lance. He receives a lifetime ban from sports. He is a broken man.

Lance is interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, David watches with his editor on TV. Grim faced and broken, Lance finally admits he doped in every Tour that he won. We see Lance cycle to the remote Dead Man’s Hole, and look down into the deep water. Lance tells Oprah that it was a mythic story but it wasn’t true. Lance plunges into the water hole. He cycles home, alone on an empty road.

“THE PROGRAM” is released and distributed by CAPTIVE CINEMA. 

OPENS IN CINEMAS NATOINWIDE DECEMBER 9! 

Poster from http://www.imdb.com/