TIFF day 4: “The Program”

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It’s day 4 at the Toronto International Film Festival, and today on the red carpet is the world premiere of a highly anticipated bio pic about Lance Armstrong.

The film is called ‘The Program’, and it focuses not only on the drug use of Armstrong, but the systematic use of doping that the entire team took part in during that time.

The film stars Ben Foster, who has become known for jumping into his roles and in taking on the role of Lance Armstrong, the actor actually took performance enhancing drugs.

“I took a calculated risk and I hope it’s worth it in the long run.”

The film chronicles the rise of Armstrong, repeated lies about steroids, and his fall. Foster says that he could feel the massive improvement in his performance while using the drugs.

“But they’re very dangerous and they shouldn’t be used casually. I was under strict doctor supervision, there can be a long fallout.”

Foster and Jesse Plemons, who plays Armstrong’s teammate Floyd Landis, had to slim down so much for the role, that director Stephen Frears didn’t recognize them with their weight back on.

“It is Jesse, god he’s looking fat. I met him here, he said I’m very hungry. I said you’re just playing a cyclist you’ve got to go on a diet.”

And Frears says that he thinks that we will soon learn more about corruption in sport.

“And that’s always good fun, I like a bit of corruption.”

But when it comes to playing the journalist who took down Lance Armstrong, Chris O’ Dowd actually came by the role, a bit secretively.

The script was adapted from the book ‘7 deadly sins’ by Irish journalist Davis Walsh. When O’ Dowd first met with Frears, he didn’t know what the role was.

“He said howe much do you know about Lance Armstrong? And your mind goes in a thousand directions at that point, and mine went in the direction of, I don’t know if I can play Lance Armstrong. And I said you know I sort of dipped in and out of the story and he said how much do you know about David Walsh the Irish journalist and I said that makes more sense.”