Stephen Frears is a masterful British director who is constantly working. Even if you missed his bigger recent prestige hits The Queen and Philomena, then you may have seen some of his acclaimed indie work like Dirty Pretty Things. Or his American flicks High Fidelity or The Grifters. Or his Hollywood costume drama Dangerous Liaisons. Or any number of other projects on his impressive and extensive filmography.
Frears’ most recent film, The Program, is a biopic of Lance Armstrong, and details the famed cyclists rise to fame, and his pretty constant use of performance-enhancing drugs. The film is about lying and obfuscation and details the extent to which Armstrong’s crimes reached.
Crave recently secured an interview with Frears to discuss The Program, his straightforward process, Ben Foster (who ought to be a bigger star), and his taste in music.
Momentum Pictures
Crave: The typical question: What possessed you to make a film about Lance Armstrong?
Stephen Frears: Well it’s a really good story, isn’t it? It’s about a criminal. What he did was fantastic. And what was your interest in him? Did you see him as sympathetic or wicked? Well I don’t think either, really. I just tried to tell what the story was. In winning the Tour de France seven times, which was such a stunning achievement. I didn’t seek to vilify him or anything. But I don’t know how you’d make him sympathetic. He did all the things he did.
Your films all seem to be about outsiders, even when dealing with The Queen of England.
That’s what people say, yeah. And that’s kind of hard to believe with the Queen, isn’t it? She’s so unrepresentative of the common… I mean, she’s both like people, and she’s not like British people at all. I don’t [actively seek] to make films about outsiders. I mean, I used to make films about women and homosexuals and people like that, but these things happen almost without you knowing it. So what draws you to the projects you take, then?
Is there one thing you seek, or is it different for each one?
I just read a story and figure “That’s really interesting.” And that’s sort of the end of it. Lance Armstrong was interesting because it was such an extraordinary crime. But I had to learn so much! I do not know a thing about, and had to look up a lot, about drugs. I knew nothing about Armstrong. He was, you know, cheating. But he was also running this cancer charity. It’s a lot, isn’t it? It’s very, very morbid.
And it’s not just the crime. It’s all the constant lying.
It’s the lying and the bullying. Quite right. Quite right.
Momentum Pictures
What sort of research did you do? You knew the story before, I’m sure, but where were you on the details?
There was a lot. I guess you have to sort of work out the chronology. You have to work out all the races he rode. At what point did he do certain things? It needed to be very, very thorough. It was very thoroughly researched. You need to understand it all. And you’re just working, the whole time, on how to tell a story first. I don’t know that I did more than that. And also, this production took a long time. Because we had to edit all the archive stuff in. Not too much. Just the usual things. It’s just very thorough work.
Is that your approach to most of your movies? Just head down and eyes forward?
You use your intelligence, and you work hard. I don’t know of any other way to do it. I didn’t know anything either. I had to learn all that stuff. To make it believable. I had to talk to a lot of crazy people. But very nice [laughs]. It was a very, very bad time for those people.
Did you get to talk to Lance Armstrong?
No. I thought it was better if we seemed to be seeing things from somewhere else somehow. He seems quite… I have no idea how [he’d react]. He spent a lot of time denying everything that happened. But I think he might be through all of that. I’m told it’s a very accurate account. Whether he’ll like it or not, I have no idea. Everything is on the record, though, so I don’t think there will be any repercussions. You can’t make a film like that without being surrounded by lawyers. You have to be careful in certain areas. You show the film to people you think know a lot, and no one’s come up with any “Oh you got that wrong.”
Momentum Pictures
Tell me about working with Ben Foster.
Well he’s just a fantastic actor, isn’t he? At some point, you realize how lucky you were to find him. I couldn’t have made the film without him? I don’t know how to audition. Someone might say “Hey, do you want this, Ben?” And others might say “Hey, he might be very good.” But you can’t audition someone for a part like that. You just have to be lucky. I was just lucky in finding him. He’s so dedicated. All that physical training, and all those things. It’s not exactly what you’d normally do on a film. It’s not what I would do, anyway. I certainly doesn’t describe what I, the director, would do on a film.
Tell me about the use of music in your films. Are you the music supervisor? Because you’ve always made excellent choices.
I’m surrounded by younger people who know quite a lot about music. And all I’m doing is directing the film. You always have music going, so that’s always going to be a large part of it. But then it’s become a large part of modern cinema. You have excellent taste. That’s very kind of you. I wish I could take credit.
Momentum Pictures
Perhaps this was just me reading too deeply, but I sensed a politic at work in The Program. Was this story meant to reflect any sort of American malfeasance in the world stage?
The story was broken by an Irish reporter working with a Frenchman. It was… What he was doing was against the tide. The British press and the American press were all constructing him as a hero, and this guy says “No, he was doping.” And he was vilified. But the French press, as soon as you about how fast [Armstrong] was, they just said “Well, he’s taking drugs. You can’t do what he did unless you’re taking drugs.”
It wasn’t anything to do, you know, with the rest of the world. I’m being honest. He just did it better than anyone else. They had been taking drugs on the Tour ever since it started! The Italians, the French, the Englishmen. Even WWII was full of drugs. He just did it better than anyone else. I don’t know if it worked because he was richer or better organized or whatever. When they stripped him of his prizes, when they stripped him of his title, they said we cannot award the 200 million to someone else because they’re all doing the same thing.
What was the first record you bought with your own money?
I think it was Marilyn Monroe singing “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.”
Top Photo: Andreas Rentz / Getty Images Europe
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and the co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. He also contributes to Legion of Leia and to Blumhouse. You can follow him on “The Twitter” at@WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
