First Image From Stephen Frears’ Lance Armstrong Film

See Ben Foster in the untitled cycling project

First Image From Stephen Frears' Lance Armstrong Film

by Helen O'Hara |
Published on

Filming only began on October 18, and it doesn't yet have a title, but Stephen Frears' Lance Armstrong film - which we're going to go ahead and call Cycling Project for the moment, just as the studio does - has released a first image to show you what they're going for.

Unsurprisingly, they're focused on the man himself, with Ben Foster in costume and on his bike as Armstrong, the man who came back from cancer to win the Tour de France seven consecutive times, only to be stripped of those titles for his doping offences.

Chris O'Dowd plays Irish sports journalist David Walsh, who raised questions about Armstrong's performance long before the rest of the world began to follow suit. Jesse "Meth Damon" Plemons, of Friday Night Lights and Breaking Bad fame, and Guillaume Canet will also appear; if we were guessing (and we are), we'd speculate that Plemons will be one of Armstrong's US Postal Service teammates and Canet a French rival. But that's blatant national stereotyping as their roles remain to be confirmed.

John Hodge, best known for his work with Danny Boyle, wrote the screenplay, and shooting should continue for the next few months into the early spring.

If you need a fix of cycling scandal in the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for a documentary background to the affair in Alex Gibney's The Armstrong Lie, recently screened at the LFF and due out here on January 31.

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