The Program

[projekktor id=’23460′]

The Program is a biographical crime drama based on David Walsh’s book Seven Deadly Sins and directed by Stephen Frears (Philomena, The Queen). The film premiered at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival and stars Ben Foster, Chris O’Dowd, Guillaume Canet, Jesse Plemons, Lee Pace, Denis Ménochet, and Dustin Hoffman.

From Academy Award® nominated director Stephen Frears (The Queen, Philomena) comes the true story of the meteoric rise and fall of one of the most celebrated and controversial men in recent history; Lance Armstrong, the world-renowned Tour de France champion.

O’Dowd immediately felt a connection with his character, journalist David Walsh. “More than anything I think what comes across in the book is that he loves cycling and as a fellow Irishman I can kind of remember the golden age of cycling in Ireland with Sean Kelly and Stephen Roache in the eighties. I think that’s what he felt more than anything – the whole drugs culture had soiled that so badly. I really enjoyed the book and I thought it was a very fair adaptation of it and I was excited. So we had this connection and I ended up getting his number, and I got in touch with him before I decided to take the film on because I definitely wanted him to be happy that I was portraying him and that he was happy with the project.”

The Program is rated 14A.