Trapped in a highly competitive world where young actors are constantly being pushed to give stronger, faster performances to keep up with their almost-superhuman peers, actor Ben Foster has revealed that he injected performance-enhancing drugs to play Lance Armstrong in Stephen Frear’s upcoming film The Program. Talking to The Guardian, Foster, whose other method-acting stunts include eating dirt for Lone Survivor and living on the streets and purchasing (but not using) crystal meth for a small role in Alpha Dog, said that he’s only recently started to recover from the drugs.
“Doping affects your mind,” the actor said, while declining to name the exact substances that will inevitably leave an asterisk next to any awards he wins for the part. “I’ve only just recovered physically,” he added, before characterizing Armstrong as both “a lying doper,” and “a smart man” who “went to war with his body.” (Not unlike the war Foster will soon be waging against orcs in the upcoming World Of Warcraft, presumably after rubbing magical crystals into his gums to really capture “the wizard experience.”)
The fruits of Foster’s hypodermic labor are on display in the trailer for The Program, which also stars Breaking Bad’s Jesse Plemons, Chris O’Dowd, and Foster’s fellow method addict, Dustin Hoffman. One can only imagine what sort of transformative tips Hoffman was able to pass on to his young co-star on the set, although it’s possible that Foster was too busy cramming soil into his mouth with his new steam shovel-sized arms to really stop and listen to the advice.