Ben foster, who plays lance Armstrong in the movie The Program which released this week, talks about how grinding it was to play the character & how he lost 30 pounds in six weeks. Excerpts from an interview
You’ve portrayed real people before, like William Burroughs...
It’s different playing someone who’s living, whose story is going to continue — it’s not done yet. This is such a complicated study, and I knew very little about, but working with Stephen Frears trumped any hesitation I might have had for The Program.
It’s interesting that you hadn’t really followed his career and that you knew him just as a cheat...
I find him an incredibly complicated, empathetic character. If you can get past the surface level concepts of good and bad or a cheat, if you just look at his narrative, this is a young guy with incredible talent and he faces cancer at a very young age. And he faces that potential death sentence and I do believe it changes you.
What do you have to say about his livestrong FoundationIJ
With full sincerity in his heart, he started this foundation because at his core, he believes in human potential. His foundation is an enormous empire; it raised half a billion dollars in cancer research. Sitting on a powder-keg, a time of massive doping; you have to go down 18 riders (in the Tour standings) to find a clean rider. The lives that he destroyed in terms of business, those were people who were threatening his empire, and that empire was actually saving lives.
There was a scene where lance realising his dream and a cyclists tells him he has absolutely no chance because everyone else in the field is cheating. To have his eyes opened that way, I’m sure that was a very formulative moment for him...
It has to be. But you can’t just take drugs and win the Tour de France. It doesn’t work that simply. It’s nutrition and the organisation of the team — he just did it better.
What was your life as lanceIJ
It was a physical grind. I don’t think there’s a sport on the planet that’s as psychologically brutal as it is physically. There’s something so self-flagulating about the sport. There’s almost a religious quality to it. It’s a thrill for someone of my temperament, a subject which I can tear into, where there’s no bottom. It was a living story. It certainly fed my appetite.
There is a scene where lance is told he is bulky. How much weight did you loseIJ
I had to lose 30 pounds in six weeks with cannibalising diets. It’s a level of starvation and cardio where your body starts eating itself. We didn’t shoot in sequence, much to my frustration. They’re like: ‘We need you really strong (at the beginning) and then we’re going to need you riddled with cancer, and then put on some weight again. You figure it out’.