“There Is Literally No Way To Get Rid Of A Beard”: An Interview With The Endlessly Charming Chris O’Dowd

When we chat on the phone, Chris O’Dowd is in Toronto launching his latest film, The Program — and owing to the time difference between Australia and Canada, I’m in bed. This is where all conversations with charming, hilarious and talented men should take place, of course – but this one comes with the caveat that we only have fifteen minutes, and someone else is waiting in line.

“I’m looking out of some high story building over a city under construction,” the actor tells me. “I’m in Canada, surrounded by bearded men.”

O’Dowd’s own beard sadly only makes a brief appearance in The Program’s opening scene: his character loses a game of foosball and a bet to cyclist Lance Armstrong (Ben Foster), and is ordered to shave it off. (The first scene, he explains, was reshot months after the rest of the film — by then, he was mid-shoot for another, beardier role, so the bet was incorporated to explain its disappearance.)

“Having a beard is a real decision. It’s a real commitment. Once it’s there, there is literally no way to get rid of a beard,” he states emphatically, before breaking into what can only be described as giggles.

The new biopic, directed by Stephen Frears, follows the drug allegations that surrounded Lance Armstrong’s career since he won the 1999 Tour De France. The conspiracy was doggedly pursued by David Walsh (Chris O’Dowd), a New York Times sportswriter who spent thirteen years pulling together the story that would eventually bring Armstrong down.

“When the allegations started to surface that he was taking drugs, part of me felt like, ‘Why don’t they just leave that man alone?’” says O’Dowd, looking back at the period. “He’s a fucking hero, why don’t you just shut your mouths and respect him?”

“This is how he survived so long; the basic human reaction to a story like this is to want the hero to win. People love fairytales.”

Despite being best known for comedic roles in Bridesmaids and The I.T. Crowd, O’Dowd’s background is in serious drama — a muscle he’s been flexing in a recent stint on Broadway.

“As an actor, when that opportunity comes up, the decision is quite easy: do you want to do Of Mice And Men with James Franco? They didn’t need to ask me twice.” The production has been showing at Longacre Theatre since April last year; O’Dowd plays the mentally disabled but physically imposing heart of the story, Lennie.

“It’s great not having the very heavy burden of making people laugh at the end of a sentence,” he says. “Comedies can be very stressful, particularly in front of a live audience — and in drama, the mood on set can be quite light because people are looking for an antidote.”

Between The Program, Of Mice and Men, and 2012’s Calvary, which examines such hilarious subjects as sexual abuse and corruption in the Catholic Church, one could be forgiven for suspecting that the scruffy, petulant IT worker Roy Trenneman was growing up.

“As you get older you get more of a social conscience. When I look at scripts now I want know, what are we talking about? It can’t be just dramatic for the sake of it. What do we want to say? Or are we just speaking for the sake of hearing our voice?”

Focusing as it does on the corruption and subterfuge that underpins professional sport, and the egoism and ruthlessness needed to succeed within it, The Program definitely fills these criteria. O’Dowd’s character falls into the grand cinematic tradition of intrepid journalists who doggedly pursue the truth — a genre for which he has great fondness.

“I remember watching All The Presidents’ Men when I was twelve or thirteen, or Network – those films stand up. Anybody chasing the truth — all of those movies in the ‘80s where there were people running around with loads of paper under their arms.”

It was a profession that appealed to him at the time, too. “For a while I thought of being a journalist, but I didn’t get the marks, so I had to become a lowly actor,” he says. I ask what stories he would have uncovered. “I’d like to know who is making money from religion. But those days are gone, of chasing stories for years and years; the days where it was hard to become a journalist are gone. Now if you can misspell or think of good clickbait, you’re in like Flynn.”

I threaten to turn my piece into a listicle — The Best Chris O’Dowd Gifs Of All Time — and he’s surprisingly receptive: “Oh God, I hope there is that. I just want a collection of gifs.”

Before agreeing to take the role in The Program, Chris met with the real David Walsh to see if he was happy with the film being made, and with the casting. David Walsh is also an Irish national living in America, and the two swapped stories of their expatriate experiences. “I like to think we’re all related. [And that] there’s one 98-year-old Irish man sitting in a bar in Boston, and he feels constantly guilty because he forgets all our birthdays,” O’Dowd laughs. “It’s a small community. I feel like I know all the Irish actors.”

“You and Colin Farrell, hanging out…” I suggest.

“That’s exactly it,” he replies. “Knitting. Now that we’re more mature fathers, we’re sitting at home having a knitting competition. We’re still very competitive, of course.”

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The Program is in Australian cinemas this Thursday November 26.

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Maddie Palmer is a writer, broadcaster, TV and digital producer. She tweets from @msmaddiep