Ben Foster has revealed he took performance-enhancing drugs as part of his research for playing Lance Armstrong in The Program.

The Lone Survivor star said he decided to experiment to understand why sportsmen such as the seven-time Tour de France winner took drugs.

“I did it through a supervised programme privately; no one knew about it,” the actor explained.

“We had the great [Scottish former professional cyclist] David Millar on set to make sure we were doing things as accurately as possible, and even he didn’t know. It was for me to privately understand what we were exploring.”

Ben Foster as Lance Armstrong in The Program
Ben Foster as Lance Armstrong in The Program (Studiocanal)

Ben, who stars opposite Chris O’Dowd as sports journalist David Walsh in Stephen Frears’s biopic, said he tried to get in contact with Lance.

“I reached out through someone on our set, who was friends with him, and at the time, he wasn’t interested in talking to me. And I don’t blame the man at all.”

Ben said he didn’t know much about the cyclist before he signed on for the role.

“I never followed cycling. He wasn’t somebody that I paid a lot of attention to so there’s a lot to learn. And the more you learn about a subject, the more complicated it becomes,” he admitted.

“I joke that I like research much more than making movies. I enjoy being a student of a subject so I could keep studying this for a very long time. That said, I’m glad to be away with it.”

For Ben, the subject of Lance is endlessly absorbing.

Lance Armstrong riding in the Tour de France in 2010
Lance Armstrong riding in the Tour de France in 2010 (Bas Czerwinski/AP)

“His myth has become more complicated to me. What’s fascinating is how intricate his story really is, if we steer the conversation away from, ‘he’s a good guy/he’s a bad guy’, and, ‘he’s a liar and cheat’.

“He raised half a billion dollars for cancer research and awareness, and he ruined people’s careers who threatened this foundation. He lied to protect it at a time when everybody was lying and doping. It wasn’t that he was doing anything different, it’s just that he was doing it better.”

The Program is in UK cinemas now.