The Program: Chris O’Dowd ponders the scandal that unseated Lance Armstrong

HE seemed a hero of Captain America proportions. But playing the role of the reporter who brought cycling legend Lance Armstrong down was an eye-opener for Chris O’Dowd.

Giving life to a cycle of lies

LIKE many casual observers of cycling, Chris O’Dowd was aware of the spectacular Lance Armstrong success story.

The Irish actor had followed the Tour de France as a child, when some of his countrymen featured prominently, and when the Texan cyclist rose to prominence in the late ‘90s, O’Dowd, along with the rest of the world, was captivated. After all, who could ignore the story of the steely-eyed cancer survivor who came back from the brink of death to beat the Europeans at the own game and inspired countless sufferers of the terrible disease with his heroics?

But as Armstrong continued on his winning ways — he won the Tour a record seven consecutive times between 1999 and 2005 — O’Dowd admits that he “zoned out”.

Until, of course, the rumours which had been whispered for years became a roar — that the cyclist had been cheating the whole time with an elaborate program of performance enhancing drugs. Not only that, he’d also pressured his teammates into doing the same, drove out anyone who refused and habitually lied to anyone who questioned him.

The Program is inspired by the book Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong by David Walsh, who is played by English actor Chris O’Dowd (pictured).

PERSONAL ROLE

“He seemed like an archetypal hero of Captain America proportions,” says O’Dowd, best known for this roles in TV comedy The IT Crowd and movies such as The Sapphires and Bridesmaids. “I was trying to objectively think about how I felt about him in that period and I feel like when they were starting to talk about him being a cheat my initial, visceral response was ‘why don’t you f — king leave that man alone?’. Not knowing what had gone on. And I think it speaks to the larger audience appeal of wanting a hero to succeed and wanting a fairy tale.”

Armstrong’s very public downfall, when he was finally — and extremely reluctantly — unmasked as both a liar and cheat of epic proportions was in no small part due to the dogged work of Sunday Times journalist David Walsh, who is portrayed by O’Dowd in The Program. The veteran cycling writer had long suspected that Armstrong’s miraculous transformation from Tour also-ran to world-beater could not possibly have been done without the help of illegal substances and continued to prosecute his case flying in the face of the sports authorities, overwhelming public sentiment and even his own peers.

“He was a dog with a bone,” O’Dowd says of Walsh. “It must have been very difficult. It wasn’t just that he was a lone voice — there were so many voices from his own industry, his own peers as well as the wider audience, telling him to shut up. And that’s hard. And what I gauged from him was that it wasn’t just about the integrity or the truth — he loved cycling. He used to go to the Tour de France for years as a fan before he got paid to do so and the idea that this man was besmirching the integrity of the entire event willingly, I think really pissed him off.”

Persistent presence ... Chris O'Dowd in a scene from the Lance Armstrong biopic, The Program.

CHANCE ENCOUNTER

O’Dowd was already preparing for the movie when a chance encounter in a London restaurant with Walsh’s daughter put the two men in contact. O’Dowd says he was struck by Walsh’s bravery and found they shared a similar obsessive nature about their jobs. But Walsh’s long-running battle with one of the most powerful men in sport, who at one point sued his paper and won, had also taken a toll that even his eventual vindication couldn’t restore.

“Eventually when the truth came, it wasn’t that moment of running down the hall at the Sunday Times high-fiving everybody that maybe he deserved. I think he had been so hurt by it and had almost emotionally moved on,” O’Dowd says. “I spoke to him a little while ago about the last Tour de France and he still finds it interesting but it probably dulled his passion for it, which it almost the worst thing you can to do somebody who loves something.”

Despite Armstrong eventually coming clean and opening up to Oprah Winfrey and others about his actions, O’Dowd says he still hasn’t seen any true contrition from the disgraced champion.

“I haven’t seen it,” he says. “And I don’t know if it exists. Maybe it’s that he’s a flawed character and he has a difficult background. Maybe he feels shame and can’t express it or whatever. But I haven’t seen it.”

That, however, doesn’t necessarily render all Armstrong’s deeds worthless. As the founder of the LiveStrong Foundation, the cyclist raised millions of dollars for cancer survivors and was beacon of hope to many sufferers of the disease. That being the case, do the charity’s good deeds outweigh its founder’s misdeeds?

“It’s hard to argue against because how do you put the truth versus lives?,” ponders O’Dowd. “They are not in the same sphere. If you could judge him as a person, are we to say that the person is disgraceful and horrible and abusive but they gave loads of money to charity so does that make them a good person? I would say I don’t think it does. But is his impact in the world more a positive than a negative one? You could definitely argue that it is.”

Dark times ... Chris O'Dowd in a scene from the Lance Armstrong biopic The Program. Studiocanal films

DRAMATIC TWIST

After Calvary and St Vincent, The Program continues a run of more dramatic parts for O’Dowd, who has been best known for his comedic roles. He says his Tony Award nominated turn alongside James Franco last year in the Broadway production of Of Mice and Men, opened plenty of doors and he hopes to balance the two strands of his career better in the future.

“It definitely makes people think about you in a slightly different way and also you think about yourself in a different way,” he says of his Broadway stint. “I remember taking it on and thinking ‘this could be bad — I could really screw everything here. People are going to see it because James is in it and it’s a huge part and a very transformative kind of character’. So to learn that you can do it and to trust yourself and be braver in your choices has been really good.”

And Aussie directors take note: after having a blast making The Sapphires here in 2011, he’s more than up for a return Down Under.

“Yes please,” he says with a laugh. “I had such a good time and I have a sister over in Melbourne so any opportunity.”

The Program opens on Thursday.