You Can’t Make This Up

Icarus

Episode Summary

Max Linsky, co-host of the Longform podcast, interviews director Bryan Fogel about his Academy Award Winning documentary, Icarus. They discuss how the film has changed Byran and Grigory's lives, how it's impacted the world of sports, and the world at large. In the Netflix Original film, filmmaker Bryan Fogel sets out to make a documentary about how athletes were getting away with doping by doping himself. He gets Grigory Rodchenkov, then director of Russia's national anti-doping laboratory, to help him figure out how. What unfolds, however, is an international doping scandal that shifts the worldwide dialogue for everything from the Olympics to the world cup, and beyond.

Episode Notes

Max Linsky, co-host of the Longform podcast, interviews director Bryan Fogel about his Academy Award Winning documentary, Icarus. They discuss how the film has changed Byran and Grigory's lives, how it's impacted the world of sports, and the world at large.

In the Netflix Original film, filmmaker Bryan Fogel sets out to make a documentary about how athletes were getting away with doping by doping himself. He gets Grigory Rodchenkov, then director of Russia's national anti-doping laboratory, to help him figure out how. What unfolds, however, is an international doping scandal that shifts the worldwide dialogue for everything from the Olympics to the world cup, and beyond. 

Episode Transcription

Female: Welcome to You Can’t Make This Up, a companion podcast from Netflix.


 

[Music]


 

Rae: I’m Rae Votta, and yes, I’m back.  I know I’ve been gone for a little while, but I’m here to host this week’s episode.  Every other week on You Can’t Make This Up, we bring in a new interviewer to discuss a different Netflix series or film with our special guests.  And there’s something every store we talk about here has in common—they’re all true.  This week, we’re focusing on one of the wildest stories we’ve ever seen here at Netflix.  It’s a documentary that has had a major impact on the world of sports and the world at large.  This week we’re talking about the Academy Award-winning field, Icarus.


 

[Music]


 

Rae: Max Linsky, one of the co-hosts of the Longform podcast is joined by Bryan Fogel.  Bryan’s not only the director of Icarus, he’s also at the center of the story.  If you haven’t seen Icarus, here is your spoiler alert for the rest of the episode.  But if you’ve seen it and you just need a reminder, here’s a quick recap.  Filmmaker Bryan Fogel set out to make a documentary about how athletes were getting away with doping by doping himself.  He got Gregory Rodchenkov, the then director of Russia’s national anti-doping laboratory, to help him figure out how.  What unfolded, however, was an international doping scandal that shifted the worldwide dialogue for everything from the Olympics to the World Cup and beyond.  Of course, a lot more went down during the filming and in the aftermath.  But I’ll let Max Linsky and Bryan Fogel tell you all about it.


 

[Music]


 

Max: Well, hey, Bryan.


 

Bryan: Hey, Max.  How are you?


 

Max: I’m well, I’m well.


 

Bryan: I’m doing, I’m doing good.  They’re all set up here in my house and, and I have a dog, Max, who’s right by my side, so it was a good Max environment.


 

Max: Well, you know, I like the Max vibes to be good.  Well, I—like everyone else in the world and the Academy, was just blown away by your film.  Congratulations on the award.  How does winning an Oscar change your life?


 

Bryan: Well, first of all, thanks.  It was an incredibly humbling experience and, you know, it was a tremendous amount of support around the project and, you know, just an amazing team of people that came together to, to help the film get the recognition that ultimately happened with the Academy.  So that was just awesome.  And, you know, I guess how, how it feels different is—I’m not quite sure. I mean, there’s, there’s, you know, it’s, like, I have this Oscar in my house and so I walk by it every day, there it is and…


 

Max: So every, every morning I wake up, I go over, I kiss it.


 

Bryan: Well, no, that was just the first couple weeks.  First, first couple weeks of having it, I just wouldn’t let it leave my sights.  I’d bring it to the bed with me, I’d put it in the kitchen, put it in the trunk of my car.  But, but, yeah, but ultimately, it’s—I think it’s only a wonderful tool to be able to continue to, to do work and to be able to continue to do projects that inspire you.  So for me, I think winning the Oscar has just opened up doors for me to continue to, to do work.


 

Max: This is probably, like, a corny question and I, I—chalk it up to me watching too many, like, sappy movies or something, but when you’re, like, standing up there, is there any part of you that thinks back to, like, the original genesis of the film, when you first had that idea and, like, whatever you needed to do to take it out and get funding and pitch it around—like, think about how wildly it changed?  And that you’re up on there—like, are, are you going through that process at all?  Or is it just kind of, like, a ‘holy shit’ moment?


 

Bryan: I think, I think I was going through that process throughout the entire process.  I think for me, the most surreal thing about it was when I, when I started on making Icarus, you know, a little over four years ago, I was probably going through one of the hardest creative and financial periods of my life, and really trying to figure out if I was going to be able to continue to be a filmmaker and be able to get funding for projects.  And so to have that experience four years later to, to be on the stage winning an Oscar, when I started the film, coming from a very different kind of emotional and financial state in my life, and creative space—that was, that was pretty amazing.  And so I’ve always—I’ve thought about that throughout this entire experience and…


 

Max: Was it—sorry, I, I guess I didn’t totally know that—was it close?  I mean, were you really close to not, not making films anymore?


 

Bryan: Yeah, you know, I had—I did a play that was very successful.  It played in New York for three-and-a-half years, and Los Angeles and all over the country.  And then I did a book and then I directed what was my first feature film, a comedy, which was an adaptation of the play.  And long story short, the film just—I took bad money into the film.  The financier didn’t want to sell it.  There was just all these, you know, stories that you hear.  And it didn’t open up doors in my career as I had hoped it to.  And, and I spent essentially a couple years after that process trying to figure out how I was going to restart.  And cycling, for me, had always been kind of my therapy in life—even though I think in Icarus it kind of shows, oh, as racing bikes—I mean, the reality was, is that I had stopped racing bikes when I was 20 years old and I had gotten very back into cycling, kind of as a, as a therapeutic kind of way, as I was figuring out how I was going to write the next chapter in my life.  And then, you know, Armstrong confessed and I started getting this idea in my mind that—hey, we’ve never seen, kind of a, a Supersize Me-esque journey in the world of performance enhancing drugs which, you know, obviously is—got a universal, worldwide curiosity to it.  And also I, I was looking at what I viewed was totally an effective anti-doping system on a worldwide basis, because despite the government and WADA, at the World Anti-Doping Agency parading that, that they had essentially, you know, caught the bad guy—they really hadn’t caught him at all.  It was—it was a confession based on all of his teammates ratting him out in exchange for their own immunity.  So I was going, wait, not what’s wrong with Lance Armstrong—what’s wrong with this global anti-doping system that can’t catch a guy after testing him 500 times?  And to me, that, that felt like that was going to be an interesting story and, and hopefully would make for a compelling film.


 

Max: And how long were you working on that version of the film before, like, your, your story turned?


 

Bryan: Well, I was working on, on that version of the film—that was about a year, for me, of essentially coming up with the idea and then figuring out how I was going to get, you know, a first round of money to kind of just start in on, on the process of, of filming.  And so it took me about a year to get the first trench of financing to kind of start on that journey.  And that really started in April 2014.  And I had already talked to Gregory Rodchenkov months before I’d actually started shooting.  So there was kind of the, the initial seeds of it, but I didn’t know where that was going to, you know, lead to or whether or not it would bear fruit, until, you know, November of 2015.  So, you know, so May, June, July, August, September—you know, a year-and-a-half into making the first film, you know, is when essentially I realized that the first film that I was making was going to be completely inconsequential to what, to what the film would ultimately become.  And, but…


 

Max: That moment is one I really want to dig into for a second, because I’m interested in a whole slew of things.  One is—is there any part of you that wonders what this, sort of, first version in its entirety would have looked like, how that would have played as a doc?  Like, do you, do you, do you think about that at all?  Like, when you, when you switch gears in the way that you had to, like, do you, do you mourn the lost narrative somehow?


 

Bryan: No, I don’t mourn the lost narrative.  And there was so many moments during that really first year where I had this kind of, like, you know, what the hell am I doing?


 

Max: Were any of those moments while you were, like, you know, sticking testosterone in your ass?


 

Bryan: Yeah, it was just—it was, it was one after the other.  And then, you know, I had Gregory involved, you know, very, very early on in the process, even before I had started doping.  But to me, in, in the early stages, the, the film that I was making and the success of the film hinged on my ability to, essentially dope and evade detection.  And that, you know, Gregory, of course, was the co-conspirator, you know, sideman in the project.  But ultimately, whether or not the film was going to work, hinged on, on that premise for me.  And so, you know, after I completed the, the second haute route in 2015, and didn’t perform as well as I had hoped—there was kind of a, a huge burden and what was feeling like an elephant, that I wasn’t quite sure if I was going to be able to pull off the film as, as I’d hoped for.  And, and at the same time, I had already been interviewing all of the guys that had been investigating Gregory and had been investigating, you know, the Russian, you know, state-sponsored doping system.  So, so I’d been planting that—I had been planting that, that foot, and I had been doing that, you know, really through the entire process that I was, that I was doping.  But I didn’t know what—where that was going to go to at that point.  You know, what the investigation was going to find, you know, and whether or not that potential storyline was going to pay off.  So, I mean, there was just so many times that I just, you know, I had, I had self-doubt.  But, but, you know, I kept going, I was, you know, I was, I was on this journey and I wasn’t gonna stop.


 

Max: Help me just understand that last thing a little bit more if you can.  Like, how do you, how do you get over that moment of doubt?  You started on one course, and I, I, I—it’s interesting to hear you say that, actually, that, like, you know, you were having those conversations already, you were interested in WADA already and, like, those tracks were laid on some level.  But, like, I can just imagine—especially if you felt like this was, like, you know, a pretty important shot for you in your career and you’ve gone and sold this kind of, like, Supersize Me version of the film, like, I can imagine at least that it would be pretty nerve-wracking to feel the ground shifting under you.  And I’m just kind of—I’m interested in how you get through that.


 

Bryan: Well, I mean, I—first and foremost, is I didn’t—as I was setting out on making the film creatively and career-wise, I didn’t really have, like, a backup plan.  So, so it wasn’t, like, this was, like, a side project to me or this was something that I was, you know, kind of doing in between other work.  This was what I was doing and this was—you know, I had essentially created what was a full-time job for myself in making this film.  So as the story just kept, you know, unfolding, you know, it was, like, okay, well, this is the journey that I’m on.  I’m going to continue to follow it.  And then I was very, very fortunate that Impact Partners, who was—who came in as my financier after the first year of making the film, realized and understood the story that we were in.  But there was a long period of time also that none of us were really thinking so much about purely the film.  It was really that we were in a real world crisis.  Gregory’s life was essentially in my hands.  And there was a huge amount of trust there.  And we were dealing with a—you know, a true real unfolding situation, the stakes were high.  And so during that period of time, the film became secondary.  But I always made sure that there was a camera there.  So it was, like, every day we were in this—like, you know, daily crisis management and how we were going to bring this story forward.  But I made sure that there was always a camera there to essentially record what was going on.


 

Max: How do the people around you—how did their feelings about what you were doing change as the stakes changed?  Like, there’s this moment, like, 20 minutes into the movie, it’s right when you find out that Gregory’s being investigated by WADA and you’re talking to Ben Stone about it.


 

Bryan: Right.


 

(Clips plays)


 

Max: It seemed like people in your life weren’t too into the original plan or too into you hanging out with Gregory.  And then once the whole tenor changed, what did people around you think?  Not your producing partners, but, like, your friends.


 

Bryan: You know, it’s actually—most of what we were going through I kept pretty close to my vest and among only those that were working on the film and the project, because this was serious.  So it’s not, like, at that point, you know, I was talking to all these guys and telling them what was going on.  You know?


 

Max: Is it weird though to, like, you know, go get dinner with somebody and just, like, shoot the shit while you’re, like, trying to keep a man from getting killed?


 

Bryan: Well, I think the interesting thing is, is through the, you know, the process obviously, my parents—you know, I would call up my parents and be, like, “You know, oh, my God, you don’t understand what’s going on.  This is really serious.”  And, you know, I think my dad, kind of always being a skeptic was, like, “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.”  You know, and they had actually met Gregory and—so nobody could kind of fathom what I knew and how, kind of, serious and far-reaching this was and essentially, kind of, how big this scandal was.  And so, you know, anybody that I kind of shared with this outside of my creative team, like, my family and stuff would always, like, downplay this, like, I was essentially, you know, like, a conspiracy theorist or something.  So, so that was interesting.  And then I think, you know, among athletes and guys who I’m riding with, cycling with, and there was only a handful knew that I was, like, essentially taking PED’s, even though I was an amateur and even though I was doing this purely from an investigative point of view, they would, like, get into, like, this, like, ethical conundrum with that.  And I always thought that was very strange, because if you have an ethical conundrum that sports should be clean, and you’re an athlete and you’re not taking anything, which, you know, which I believe in that—then my process of wanting to show that the system was a fraud—I would have thought that other athletes would have been excited about.  And yet, they were looking at it that I was, like, a cheater and I was consistently going, “I’m not, I’m not a cheater, I’m not going into competitions where I’m being paid money.  I’m not a sponsored athlete.  I’m a filmmaker and I’m investigating something and I’m showing, hopefully, the fallacies of a system which is actually going to help protect you and help you if you’re a clean athlete, insure that competition is clean.”  And so I encountered that many times on the journey, and I always that that was very strange, that these guys couldn’t, like, step out of their own shoes to understand what was the bigger process.


 

Max: What do you think was threatening to them?


 

Bryan: Well, I think what was threatening, and I’ve kind of continued to encounter this, and I’ll share with you one story just from this past week through the film, and then in the last year—you know, I’ve gotten to know Lance Armstrong.  So I went cycling with him last week.  And…


 

Max: That must have been pretty cool.


 

Bryan: Yeah, and it was, and it was really cool.  And so, you know, love or hate Lance, you know, for me it’s, like, wow, I’m cycling with, you know, the guy who, you know, regardless of anything, he won the Tour de France seven times.  I mean…


 

Max: Shooting hoops with Lebron.


 

Bryan: Yeah, and whether—and to me, whether or not Lebron James hypothetically, you know, was taking something or not, or, you know, that doesn’t—that didn’t diminish the feat of winning seven Tour de France’s knowing that everybody else was essentially doing the same thing.  And if you go back historically, you know, it really is arguably a level playing field, because there was nobody else to give those titles to, and there’s still nobody else to give those titles to, so…


 

Max: How’s Lance Armstrong doing these days?


 

Bryan: Yeah, well, hang on—so anyways, so I post a photo of Lance and I on Instagram riding, and I get, like, a couple angry text messages from, you know, from ex-pro cyclists, that I had somehow, like, stabbed them in the back.  And I’m thinking to myself, not only have I not stabbed you in the back, had the Lance story not happened, then Icarus and all these revelations would have never happened.  I would have never started on that journey.  I would have never met Gregory, I wouldn’t have been able to bring what was a fraud, you know, on a level a million times bigger than Lance forward, and in so doing, that’s helped protect, you know, clean athletes.  That’s helped, you know, hopefully make changes in the system and bring awareness globally to a bigger problem.  So it’s always been interesting to me how, how short-sighted I’ve found many people in this journey, rather than looking at the bigger perspective outside of themselves.


 

Max: Well, he also—I mean, Armstrong in particular, just—he’s such, like, a trigger.  He just represents so much to people, I think.  You know, he’s a symbol in all of these ways.  Over and over and over again in Icarus we see him say, “I’ve tested positive every time,” you know, look into the camera and say, “I never doped.”


 

Bryan: Right.


 

Max: Say I’m clean.


 

Bryan: Yeah.


 

Max: And, and I wonder whether you think that in those moments he knew he was lying or whether he had found a lie to tell himself that was so powerful that he believed what he was saying.


 

Bryan: Well, I mean, you would need to ask Lance that, because I certainly wouldn’t know that.  But I believe that, you know, we get into—in Icarus, the whole theme of Orwell and doublethink, and 1984, which is Gregory’s favorite book and was kind of his roadmap for life—and I think that in many ways that probably, you know, mirrored Lance’s journey and, you know, the idea of—the more and more you tell a lie, that ultimately you start believing in its truth.  And that certainly was kind of the roadmap of Gregory and his journey, and Winston Smith in 1984, which is this, you know, this doublethink, which is—you know, continuing to repeat a lie until it becomes the truth.  I can certainly understand theoretically where Lance was coming from all those years—that, you know, once he was caught up in that and once he had become a champion and the sponsorships, and also the belief that everybody else was doing the same thing or were doing the same thing—I could see why the defense of that lie occurred.  Not to justify it or not to validate it, but I think I could understand what that might be like to be caught into something like that, because that certainly was Gregory’s path as well.


 

Max: It is about doublethink, like, that’s a much finer point to put on my, like, clumsily-phrased question.  When did you decide to use 1984 as such a—like, kind of key device in the film?  Did that come late or did that come early?


 

Bryan: That came late and I wish I could truly take credit for that, but I can’t.  Gregory traveled with, you know, with 1984.  And at the time, you know, I had multiple editors on the project and one of my lead editors by the name of Kevin Klauber, looking through all the footage, had really grasped on that Gregory was always quoting Orwell and was always quoting, you know, out of 1984.  And he had been doing it, you know, through the entire time that I met him.  I mean, and, and, you know, like, long before he had fled to the U.S.  And I remember Kevin saying to me, you know, “Hey, Bryan, have you read 1984?”  And I go, “Yeah, I mean, in high school.”  He goes, “You know, you should go back and look at this.”  And I went back and started looking at it and there was, I think, kind of a—oh, my God, light bulb moment among myself and the creative team, that essentially what was happening in our story mimicked, you know, 1984, and that Gregory, in a way, was Winston Smith.  And that narrative, the construct mimicked the three stages of Winston Smith—learning, understanding, acceptance.   And those stages of Winston Smith’s journey was truly mimicking Gregory’s journey.  And here Gregory was the living embodiment of doublethink.  So all those kind of revelations led us to think that this could be a narrative or this could be a construct that we could frame the story around.  And literally, a couple days before bringing Gregory into protective custody—dropping him off at the airport which was in July of 2016, we brought him into our editing offices and found a quiet room, brought in the sound guys, and recorded him reading various passages, which we had highlighted in 1984, for, you know, a couple of hours.  And then over the next year as we crafted the film, these passages we were able to frame a story around and has his, you know, audio of recording that as the narrator.


 

Max: Can I ask you another process question that’s right in line with, like, that evolution?


 

Bryan: Sure.


 

Max: When he started—at first he was, like, a character and an advisor in the film, right?  And then he kind of becomes its subject, and then he kind of becomes your friend, and then he becomes a victim in someone who’s in danger.  There’s so many different roles as a filmmaker in that process, right?  Like, you’re starting to wear all these different hats.  And as you were saying earlier, like, at some point the film actually becomes a secondary importance.  When you start realizing that, like, this guy’s life is kind of in your hands, how do you figure out how to protect him?  Like, what do you do?  There’s a moment where you reference that you talked to Ben Wizner, Snowden’s lawyer.  And I just, like, I wonder, like, once you realize how high the stakes have gotten, like, literally in a practical sense, how you figure out how to protect someone, like, in that situation?


 

Bryan: Well, I think that’s—two parts of that answer, which is first, the desire to protect him, and, you know, there’s this scene in Icarus where the WADA report comes out, he’s forced to resign from the lab, the lab’s accreditation is pulled and Putin is on television, basically saying that we deny this, none of this is true.  But if any of this happened, it’ll be the individual that is held responsible and punishment is absolute.  And here’s Gregory in Moscow with two FSB agents, essentially living in his home, quote, un-quote, guarding him.  And that statement by Putin and what was going on was essentially his death sentence, and they were going to throw him under the bus.  And so as I understood that very quickly, the idea that I wasn’t going to help him, to me, never really crossed my mind.  Because here he had been my advisor and helping me without literally a dime of money, there was never any financial consideration.  He had just been helping me and advising me and filming with me as a friend.  You know, I mean, it was truly as simple as that.


 

Max: Why do you think he did it?  Like, why did he start doing it with you?


 

Bryan: You know, I’ve asked him that many times and I think that, I think that, that he liked and, you know, and what he said to me, is that he liked that I was devious, he liked that I was—you know, and in his mind, I was an amateur athlete, so, you know, I wasn’t a professional, so, hey, there was, you know, this gray area, a loophole that you could theoretically help me, you know, at least in his mind, which of course that was certainly a conundrum that we had and—before the film took the turn, which was—I was, like, how are we going to ever put this out?  Gregory will lose his job, he’ll be—you know, exiled, he’ll be—you know, because of—because everything that he is helping with, he shouldn’t have been doing to begin with.  But, you know, we had this trust and I think that he in his mind also, you know, maybe there is, you know, a manifestation of what was happening.  And I think he probably realized, and I know that he realized that, you know, the noose was kind of tightening around him, this investigation was unfolding.  There’d been this German documentary.  And on top of that, he was fed up with, with his job.  He was fed up with the ministry, he was fed up that, you know, that he was no longer a scientist, he was essentially a guy who was—whose job was dumping out, you know, dirty urine for clean urine.  And I think all those elements probably led him to help me, that it seemed like a new adventure.  But it was ultimately, you know, his help and trust that we established that made it very easy for me to get him that ticket, to get him here and protect him, because he had been such, you know, an extraordinary friend to me.  The idea that I wasn’t going to be a friend to him didn’t really cross my mind.


 

Max: Yeah, it’s funny—thinking about—I watched the movie twice before you and I talked—and watching his introduction again, knowing, like, where the story is going to go, you know, you really read it differently.  Like, the first time I experienced it, he kind of seems, like, someone who’s like—he’s kind of just in it for, like, the ego boost, you know?


 

Bryan: Right.


 

Max: Like, he’s good at it and he likes talking about it and he wants to get seen and—he seems kind of, like, oddly, like, nonchalant about it.  And then the second time around, knowing where it was going to go, there’s this other element to it, like—maybe part of why he was so game to talk to you was because he was trying to figure out how he was going to get out.  Maybe it was just one path, you know, one possibility.  Maybe there’s, like, a bunch of hands.  But maybe you represented some, some chance that could work, you know?


 

Bryan: I—you know, look, it’s—you know, not wax philosophical or spiritual, but there’s so many things that kind of happened and the—in the journey of life that you might look at that could be random or by chance, but ultimately have a bigger purpose.  And so the—just the idea that I come into Gregory’s life and Gregory comes into my life at that perfect timing—that, you know, that he helps me in my journey and then I—you know, and then I help him in his journey, you know, all these kind of—just different things that transpired, really transpired, you know, almost feels like fate—I mean, that we were meant to come into each other’s lives to help each other.  It certainly is kind of a crazy story when you look at how it all came together.  And it happened, so—and I don’t think Gregory knows exactly, you know, why or how he did everything, other than he did.  He trusted me, I trusted him, and ultimately I protected him and my team protected him and he had protected me.


 

Max: At any point, as these roles were shifting, and you were going from, like, director, subject, like, advisor, athlete to friends, and then protector—like, at any point did he become a collaborator in the filmmaking?  Like, I’m thinking about, like, the big interview where he walks you through swapping urine and admits to everything and maybe we could just take a second and listen to that really quick.


 

(Clip plays)


 

Max: So, like, when you sat down for that big interview, had you guys talked about it?


 

Bryan: Oh, yeah.


 

Max: Was it planned?


 

Bryan: I mean, there had—you know, I shot, actually, multiple interviews that were, you know, various kind of versions of, you know, of the tell-all, because there was so much to tell.  And before, and before we sat down and did that interview, yeah, we had multiple discussions.  And I’d actually shot, you know, just stuff not, not all lit and ready for that, in various, kind of, iterations of it.  And certainly as, you know, as we got into the editing of that story, we probably even pulled audio from a couple different interviews.  But the unraveling of that really was over a couple months time, of once he had got to Los Angeles.  And I think Gregory’s decision to become a whistleblower and his desire to, to expose this truth—and as that desire in him grew, you know, our kind of continuing to shoot interviews with him, as he became more and more open about what had happened and what he had been involved in, that continued, kind of, our journey of interviewing.  And obviously, the biggest revelation or fraud being what he had been involved with in Sochi, and that he was essentially the architect of that plan.


 

Max: Do you think—this way that we’ve talked about where, like, the stakes were kind of building on themselves and the ground was shifting, and all of a sudden, as a viewer, at least, you realize, like, oh, this is a much bigger deal than I thought even a few minutes ago in the film.  Do you think that he was aware of the stakes the whole time?


 

Bryan: Absolutely.  And the funny thing—or not the funny thing, but the reality, is that Gregory kept telling me the stakes consistently and, and I knew what the stakes were, but, you know, he would be, like, you know, “This is a Nuclear bomb, this is a big bomb, this is a huge bomb, this is going to change the world.  This is the biggest fraud in history, this is the demise of the Olympics, this is going to destroy WADA.  This is going to destroy Russia.”  Like, and so Gregory was always kind of reminding me of how big this was, you know?  And I knew that, but, you know, there’s also kind of the idea of, hey, you know, somebody telling you something, so, you know, if I’m saying, “Max, you’re never going to believe this, this is really big.”  You know, and then, and then, and then, you know, kind of the understanding of, whoa, this is really big—and then, of course, the media and news and investigation and New York Times and everything, going, yeah, this is really big.  And, and then all of it being proven true.  So I think Gregory, from day one, knew, you know, kind of how big this was and how big of a fraud and held those cards to his chest a little bit initially, and then as our trust built in his desire to become a whistleblower and expose this fraud crew, you know, he knew that there were, you know, essentially many chapters to play.  And those chapters have continued to, you know, to unfold.  I mean, he was just recently coming very public about various players on Russia’s World Cup soccer team, that he had been swapping urine for.  You know, there’s still pieces of his story that just keep unfolding.


 

Max: It’s so—that’s funny to hear you say that.  There’s something about, like—part of what makes it hard to know where the stakes are in the film is that all of the, like, Olympic and WADA officials, basically every single one of them is such, like, a careful, older white man with gray hair, and they all talk in, like, such monotones, you know, that it’s sort of hard to know how important or eventful or impactful what they’re saying are.  Like, the whole culture of it is so, like, neutral and monotone.  And Gregory is so not that—he’s so, like, animated and all over the place.  And that scene when he sees the Time stories is really, I think, what I was asking about.  Because that seems like one moment where he—it sort of hits him, the magnitude of what he’s doing.  It’s striking to me that his first reaction was just, like, that story’s so good, you know?  Like, this is so good.  And honestly, Bryan, what it made me think about was what his reaction to your film would be.  Do you know if he’s seen it?


 

Bryan: Yeah, no, he’s seen it.  I know that his lawyer showed it to him, so I don’t think he’s ever got to experience in a theater on the big screen.  I know he hasn’t.  But I know that he was incredibly moved by it and really taken by it.  And I think he was kind of overwhelmed emotionally by how it came together and how, you know, we portrayed him in the film and etc.


 

Max: I assume that you don't know where he is and you haven’t talked to him, and even if you did know and you had, you couldn’t tell me.  But imagine that he’s, you know, somewhere wherever you get put when you’re in witness protection, and he just happens to be a listener to this podcast and subscribing on his iPhone and listening, is there something you’d want to say to him after all this?


 

Bryan: I mean, I think I would say to him, you know, I don't know if I can curse, but, you know…


 

Max: You can.


 

Bryan: I think I would just say, “Holy fuck, man.  Look what you did.”  You know?  No, I am constantly concerned for his emotional and mental wellbeing.  And, you know, being a whistleblower is, in many ways, a very selfless act.  Because if you look at, kind of, the history of many whistleblowers, is they pay a huge cost.  When you look at Gregory’s journey, outside of the notoriety, recognition, whatever you might want to call it, pseudo-celebrity—behind that, there’s a very heavy price, which is this guy is going to have a target on his back for the rest of his life, certainly we’ve seen this, you know, in the case of Skripal or Alexander Litvinenko or any number of Russians that we’ve, you know, that we’ve read about that have, that have met untimely demises.  And he is isolated from his family, he’s isolated from ever returning to that country, and my understanding is that, you know, he lives most of his days kind of in solitude, because, you know, he can’t be roaming around in public.  Apparently they put him in a bulletproof vest when he goes out, and his lawyer and FBI and whatever, have continued to facilitate him being able to do interviews and press to keep the story forward.  But that’s—it’s a—you know, it’s a big price to, to pay.


 

Max: Do you miss the guy?


 

Bryan: Yeah, of course.  And, you know, I worry more or think about more, what is two years, three years down the line look for him?  And I think that, that’s a heavy toll.


 

Max: I got one more question, Bryan, and then I’ll let you go.  Thinking down the line for him is one thing, thinking down the line for you is another.  And I believe in that stuff too, like, things happening for a reason and—it does seem like from a strictly, like, narrative perspective, from a filmmaking perspective, something miraculous happened to you, you know?  I mean, you just—the story of a lifetime just kind of unfolded in front of you and took you on this crazy path and, you know, you got that Oscar that you sleep with every night.


 

Bryan: Not anymore, that was only the first couple weeks.


 

Max: Oh, right, right, my bad, my bad.  Well, here’s the thing I was wondering—is, like, what do you do now, man?  Like, you can’t recreate that, right?  And I know some people who have had that kind of public success and I know that your phone starts ringing and your email is crazy and all these offers pour in, but how do you, like, how do you follow up something so incredible and so impossible to engineer?


 

Bryan: That’s a good question, and I think that, you know, you—I’ve experienced this in a much smaller capacity before where I did this play called Jewtopia.  You know, it was, it was a big success.  And in the success of that, which kind of went on for years, I found myself kind of trapped by that success.  I liken it to kind of being Ross, David Schwimmer on Friends or Jason Alexander on Seinfeld, where, you know, you’re always going to be that person, no matter, you know, how many times you might try to reinvent yourself.  And that can kind of burden you, because it’s this feeling of, you know, of imminent failure.  And I think with Icarus, having went through that once with Jewtopia, I know that I’m not going to replicate that success, I am not going to—very unlikely find a story like this again.  And so you have to kind of understand that creatively.  And just try to kind of push forward with what inspires you.  So, you know, for me, like, the follow up is to produce doc projects that I’m passionate about.  And I’ve got a scripted feature that I’m working to get going, which is a true story.  And so figuring out kind of how to navigate that, knowing that whatever I do is not going to be Icarus, but hopefully, you know, it’ll be its own thing.  And, you know, and you just move forward creatively and, and try not to worry too much about the overall outcome, other than to do your best.


 

Max: Hey, thank you, man.  Thank you for doing this.


 

Bryan: Oh, thanks, Max.  My pleasure.


 

[Music]


 

Rae: That was Bryan Fogel in conversation with Max Linsky, host of the Longform podcast.


 

[Music]


 

Rae: Before we let you go, we’ve got one more treat for you.  You know the segment—it’s What You Watching?  It’s where we find out what the people who make these Netflix original series and films are watching on Netflix.  This week, Bryan Fogel fills us in on his favorite shows.


 

Bryan: A couple things, Wild Wild Country—those guys just knocked it out of the park with that.  The Bobby Kennedy doc series I’ve found just incredible.  I finally found time to get into The Keepers, and I love The Crown.  And I like Narcos too.  I really want to watch The Staircase, which looks crazy.  So I’m looking forward to seeing that.


 

[Music]


 

Rae: And that’s it for this week’s episode.  We’ll be back in two weeks to talk about the new season of Last Chance U.  You can find this show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify and wherever else you get your podcasts.  Make sure to subscribe, rate and review this show.  It helps other people find it and also makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  You Can’t Make This Up is a production of Pineapple Street Media and Netflix.  Our music is by Hansdale Hsu.  I’m Rae Votta and thanks for listening.


 

[Music]


 

Bryan: You know, November of 2015—so, you know, essentially there was…


 

Male: Hi, Max.


 

Bryan: I’m sorry, hang on one second.


 

Max: That’s fine.  I would have been bummed if Max didn’t make an appearance.