Stephen Frears has revealed that he first intended to make a film about Tyler Hamilton before finally turning his attention to Lance Armstrong. The Program, a film directed by Frears, and that follows Armstrong’s rise and fall from grace, was released in the United Kingdom this week. A release date for the USA has not yet been announced but a premiere is scheduled at the Austin Film Festival on November 5.
At the film’s UK preview in London on Wednesday, Frears confirmed that he had originally looked at making a film based around Hamilton’s biography, [co-written with Dan Coyle] The Secret Race. The talks between Hamilton and Frears broke down after just one phone call and Frears eventually went onto make a film from David Walsh’s Armstrong book – Seven Deadly Sins.
“I’m always slightly embarrassed to say this in front of David but I read a review of Tyler Hamilton’s book and it sounded fantastic and it was a really interesting story,” Frears told Cyclingnews after The Program’s premiere.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Then Tyler Hamilton wouldn’t sell it to us. Then my friends who know about cycling said I should read David Walsh’s book, which had a story."
“Tyler’s book was very good and we tried to buy it and he said no. There was a phone call and after the call he said it didn’t go very well, but from my end it went it was fine."
Frears' film stars Ben Foster as Armstrong, with Chris O’Dowd playing Walsh and Dustin Hoffman cast in the role of Bob Hamman of the SCA insurance company who's refused to pay a Tour de France bonus to Armstrong and empowered the investigation into his doping. Former cyclist David Millar was brought on board as a consultant and helped to bring realism to the race scenes. However, for Frears the film isn’t about cycling, as such, and he tried to bring embodiment to the laws that were broken.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/1jIz8T5
No comments:
Post a Comment