Director of Lance Armstrong film didn't know actor took drugs to prepare

In an extreme case of art imitating life, the director of a new movie about Lance Armstrong said he wasn’t aware that his star actor had taken drugs to enhance his own performance in the film.

Ben Foster portrays Lance Armstrong in “The Program,” which will be released in select theaters in the U.S. on March 18. To prepare for the role, Foster told The Guardian last year that he took drugs much like Armstrong did when winning the Tour de France.

“I didn’t know,” the film’s director, Stephen Frears, told USA TODAY Sports this week. “I read the same newspapers that you did. I knew nothing. I think he’s a terrific actor. The qualities required to win the Tour de France … Ben took those on.”

For those who know the Armstrong saga, this might sound a little too familiar. Sponsors and associates who benefited from Armstrong’s success also claimed they hadn’t known the former cyclist was using drugs to enhance his performance, leading critics and even Armstrong’s attorneys to scoff in disbelief.

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Now Frears is denying that he knew Foster had done the same to better play Armstrong in his movie.

Believe it or not, such a storyline only adds to the eerie undertone in one of the biggest bike-and-drug films since “Easy Rider.”

“They work,” Foster is quoted as saying about the drugs he took in real life.

They work in the movie, too, taking a big supporting role in a film whose script otherwise lacks suspense because almost everybody already knows the plot.

There’s no need for a spoiler alert here:  Armstrong survives cancer, turns to doping and becomes an international hero before all of his deceit catches up to him in the end, forcing him to make a precipitous fall.

The movies shows all of that. So why watch it play out all over again?

There are at least two good reasons. One is Foster, who was not available to talk to USA TODAY Sports on behalf of the film, a public-relations representative for the movie said. His physical resemblance to Armstrong and his calculating depiction of him make it hard to look away, even if you already know what’s coming.

The other reason is the drugs and deception. Plenty of documentaries, books and media accounts have described how Armstrong used banned drugs and blood transfusions to enhance his performance on the bike, but what did it really look like?  Frears says the word “doping” can be a too abstract. “I never know quite know what the words mean” without seeing it, he said.

This movie shows the syringes in the soda cans. It also shows “the pope of dope,” Michele Ferrari, preparing chemicals for Lance in the lab. “No longer were we confined to the limits of physiology,” Ferrari’s character tells Armstrong in the film. “Now we could alter physiology.”

Armstrong “hadn’t filmed himself taking the drugs and being nasty to people,” said Frears, who also directed “The Queen” and “High Fidelity.” These movie scenes help people say, “Oh, I see. This is what was going on, yes,” Frears told USA TODAY Sports.

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Frears admits the film takes dramatic liberties in some parts. Early the film, Armstrong and teammates are shown buying drugs at a pharmacy in Europe.

“Yes, Lance wasn’t there (in real life),” Frears said. “He didn’t go.”

Asked the reason for placing him there then, Frears said, “Just you know, it comes across as rather attractive.”

Just like the story behind this script.

Even if you know the ending in advance, the retelling of an epic tragedy still has a powerful pull.  Ask anybody who watched the recent television series about the murder trial of former football star O.J. Simpson.

The harder they fall, the bigger the potential audience.  After lying to protect his image for so long, Armstrong finally confessed to doping in 2013.  He was stripped of all seven of his Tour de France titles in 2012.

“The scale of what he did, the extent of what he did, it’s a fantastic story,” Frears said.

Follow sports reporter Brent Schrotenboer on Twitter @Schrotenboer. E-mail: bschrotenb@usatoday.com