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How Andy Samberg Convinced Lance Armstrong to Be in an HBO Comedy About Doping

By Scott Tobias

The HBO mock-documentary 7 Days in Hell —about an epic Wimbledon match between a bad-boy Andre Agassi type and a dim-witted British simpleton—plays like a comic hallucination of the McEnroe/Borg documentary Fire & Ice , full of absurd tangents and stories within stories within stories. At one point, a top-ranked player leaves tennis to start an underwear line in Sweden (which ends in lawsuits over groin-chafing); at another, the doc trails off into a mini-profile of a courtroom sketch artist famous for incorporating cartoon animals into his work. Created by Andy Samberg and Murray Miller, written by Miller, and directed by Jake Szymanski, 7 Days in Hell parodies the gravitas of ESPN's 30 for 30 series and HBO's own sports docs, but it's also inspired silliness for its own sake, packed with filthy jokes and appearances from big names in the sporting world and in comedy circles.

Under the HBO "Legends of Sport" banner, Samberg, Miller, and Szymanski have returned with Tour de Pharmacy , an equally brilliant riff on the plague of performance-enhancing drugs in professional cycling. Tour de Pharmacy takes a fictitious look back at the 1982 Tour de France, an event so scandalized with drug cheats that 170 riders were disqualified and only five continued to compete. (They're dubbed "The Fab Five," which prompts an appearance here by a deeply confused Chris Webber.) The remaining cyclists are Marty Hass (Samberg), an American schooled in Nigeria who proudly represents the entire African continent; JuJu Peppi (Orlando Bloom), whose heart explodes from a cocktail of about three dozen different drugs; Slim Robinson (Daveed Diggs), Jackie Robinson's nephew, who hopes to break the color barrier in this very white sport; Gustav Ditters (John Cena), a German who's bulked up conspicuously; and Adrian Baton (Freddie Highmore), a Frenchwoman masquerading as a Frenchman. In contemporary interviews, Jeff Goldblum, Danny Glover, Dolph Lundgren, and Julia Ormond play older versions of Hass, Robinson, Ditters, and Baton, respectively.

Many more unexpected people turn up in Tour de Pharmacy , from Mike Tyson to J.J. Abrams to Phylicia Rashad, but the real ace in the hole is Lance Armstrong, who appears in poorly shrouded silhouette. After spending years beating drug tests and vociferously denying accusations of cheating, only to finally get caught and confess his sins to Oprah Winfrey, Armstrong proves surprisingly eager to make fun of himself and his scandal-ridden sport. In an interview with GQ , Samberg, Miller, and Szymanski talked about Armstrong's participation, their odd digressions into a Swedish "Kultabank" credit-card commercial and a radical "red blood cell" animated explainer, and their devotion to full-frontal male nudity.

What went into persuading Lance Armstrong to do this? Andy Samberg: Basically, we reached out to his reps and sent them the script. Then they said that Lance thought it was funny and he wanted to talk to me. So I called him. We talked and he liked it.

Was his participation essential? Samberg: Murray wrote it in, and we all thought it was so funny that we were praying it would happen. No one knew what he would think of it. We felt like we could make it without him, but if we got him, it would be really clutch, comedically.

Jake Szymanski: He definitely lends a lot of credibility to it because he remains, to the general public, the face of cycling in America. I think we can say we were all pleasantly surprised he said yes.

Were there restrictions or lines he didn't want crossed? Samberg: I don't think so.

Szymanski: No. He was pretty game for all of it and understood what the jokes were.

Samberg: We tried a bunch of stuff within the script—a bunch of alt-lines—and he found it all pretty funny.

Szymanski: I guess Lance Armstrong is not a guy known for saying, "Those are lines I shouldn't cross."

Samberg: That was Jake, just to clarify.

Szymanski: Put that on me.

How do the script and casting develop together? What adjustments need to be made based on who plays what role? Murray Miller: It definitely starts with the script and then, like a typical film, we look to cast the parts. I had some notion of who we wanted—and we got lucky enough to cast those people, for the most part—but there were some parts that we were unsure about, and the casting director figured out some names for us.

Samberg: Yeah. And when you cast Jeff Goldblum, you definitely write lines that you imagine being said by Jeff Goldblum. Stuff like that.

In 7 Days in Hell , Andy plays an Agassi-like figure, and you reference things like the Fire and Ice documentary, or the Isner-Mahut match at Wimbledon. Were there specific references you were going for with Tour de Pharmacy ? Szymanski: There's a great doc called Pantani and another great one called Slaying the Badger . There's a couple of other things we watched that inspired Murray when he was writing, and us when we were making it. Probably none of those were specific as a comedic take on this one movie, but we pulled from a couple different worlds of cycling and mashed it all together.

Samberg: In 7 Days in Hell , Fire and Ice was the touchpoint because it was on Wimbledon. But on this one, the idea was to pull from all the different crazy stories throughout the history of the sport, and Murray, when he started writing outlines, would go back through his sports knowledge and put together a big melange of crazy moments from that specific sport.

What about cycling inspired you? What's funny about it? Miller: I like that, in this country, it's really still a niche sport that a lot of people don't know about. I can take a little more liberty with it because I think people aren't so familiar with the rules. But, on top of that, we just like that there's not a comedy set in this world, the same way that there wasn't a well-known tennis comedy out there.

Samberg: Right. And also, Spandex.

One of the great bits in 7 Days in Hell is the digression when the main story is put on hold and you have this weird backstory about a courtroom sketch artist. This has something similar in an explainer of how red blood cells work. Is there something about documentaries that you're sending up, or is this just an absurdist streak at work? Miller: I think it's more the latter for me. I just took joy in writing this and being able to take it off on these bizarre tangents. At times it's like a sketch show.

Samberg: Part of why I think we have so much fun working in the mockumentary genre is that you can cut to pretty much anything at any time. People are now so conditioned to watch documentaries—they know how they operate, and that you can introduce a new character by cutting to them, and now they're in it. Similarly, being able to treat a sidebar idea that has nothing to do with your main story really seriously, the way the rest of it is being treated—all the pomp and circumstances lend themselves, I feel, to making comedy feel really earned and funnier and weirder. Obviously we are not the first people to do that, but we certainly love working in that tradition.

Szymanski: I also like, in documentaries, how they do take small tangents in order to understand the story. Even though it's a tangent to us or the viewer, that to the characters in the movie, to the talking heads, it's not a tangent—it's what everyone knows about if they know about this subject. It creates an extra, funny layer about what world they're in. If you follow cycling and this world, everyone knows about the 1981 Kultabank commercial, which is insane.

By Eileen Cartter

By Vince Mancini

By Jack King

How do you go about explaining to, say, Chris Webber, how he'll be involved? It's such a wild tangent for him to be in the thing at all. Miller: Andy, you want to take that one? I think we're still waiting to explain to him how he was used. One of our producers ran into him and was like, "He's available and a fan," and he was nice enough to come down and let us shoot him. And we're fans.

Samberg: We are. We happened to have a bit about the Fab Five in the movie, so we were like, "Well, actually, this is already perfect," and we just kind of worked it in. But it was great to have him, and there's tons of stuff he did. Obviously his part in it is not huge. [ Laughs ]

"When we went to HBO with the idea of 7 Days , we said to them, 'Put this out like you would any documentary. Do it through HBO Sports. Don't tip off that it's a comedy.'"

I was surprised he was okay with the "time out" reference. Samberg: Yeah. Well, that's the fun of these things. Obviously I have a ton of training with this type of thing from SNL , because it's where people come to let the air out of whatever their thing is, but more power to him. I was a huge fan of him growing up when he was on the Warriors, because I'm from the Bay. So it was cool to have him involved.

Athletes aren't necessarily known for their tremendous senses of humor. Samberg: Yeah, man. I presented at the ESPYs. [ Laughs ]

Ideally, do you want viewers to discover these shows without knowing they're comedy? Miller: That was something Andy and I talked about really early on. When we went to HBO with the idea of 7 Days , we said to them, "Put this out like you would any documentary. Do it through HBO Sports. Don't tip off that it's a comedy," and I think HBO did a good job of marketing both of these—in terms of, at least, the key art on the billboards and such.

Samberg: I've definitely had people tell me that they were watching HBO, and it came on and thought it was going to be normal, and they realized that it was something that I worked on and it was insane and caught them off-guard. That was a delightful thing to hear.

Do you consider yourselves students of sports documentaries? Are there aspects you felt inclined to parody? Szymanski: I think that, definitely, part of the idea—especially when we made the first one—was that the 30 for 30 docs had become a very big thing, and there was a resurgence of sporting docs. I think that especially we were looking at those and saying, "This is slightly more specific than a regular documentary. How can we make our comedic version of this?"

Samberg: I think we consider ourselves avid viewers of them, and not necessarily "students." [ Laughs ]

Miller: I definitely started watching them more once I started writing these things.

Samberg: Murray, it's better the other way: We were students of the genre and we felt compelled to work in that genre.

What is your working relationship like, Andy and Murray, and what does it yield that's different from other partners? Samberg: Well, specifically 7 Days in Hell … we'd wanted to make a tennis comedy since we were at summer camp. Right, Mur?

Miller: Yeah. That's actually a real thing. It was extremely gratifying.

Samberg: As is known, I work with my friends quite a bit. It's just more fun. I've worked with Jake a long time, too. He came to SNL when I was there; we've known each other a long time and done a lot of stuff together. When you work with people and are friends with them also, you have more of a shorthand. I think people relax more and it opens the door to being less precious and trying things that, when you're shooting and writing, it becomes much more collaborative—therefore funny, hopefully.

Miller: The disagreements don't last as long. I remember, Andy, we disagreed on one thing and you said, "We've been friends so long that we'll always be friends. It doesn't matter anymore." So, yeah, there's less of a major disagreement during the creative process.

Samberg: As they would say in The Fast and the Furious , "It's family."

To what degree do you let cast members make their own weird contributions? I'm thinking of Will Forte choosing to read his lines in a phonetic French. Miller: Just to be clear: Will did not have any cue cards. He stayed up all night learning that in French, and it was very impressive.

Samberg: Considering he spoke no French until the night before, he did pretty good.

Miller: You definitely want any contribution that the actor wants to bring. I know Jeff Goldblum is basically wholly responsible for the outfit he ended up in.

Samberg: Yeah. He researched it.

"Chris Romano's dick is the Stan Lee of our universe. He'll have a cameo in every one."

Based on what? Samberg: Based on his character. He went through the world of the Internet and found a bunch of costume inspirations and sent them to us, and they were, frankly, brilliant.

Miller: He found an African designer that he liked and sent them to our costume designer for inspiration. I think that led to his amazing jumpsuit.

The film has a lot of the requisite HBO nudity, but the vast majority is full-frontal male. Is that some sort of commentary on your part, or are penises just funny? Miller: I worked on Girls for five years. Maybe I found some joy in showing full-frontal male nudity to change things up.

Samberg: For me, it was just a nice departure to do comedy about dicks. I never had really gotten to do that in music form or any form. It was a freeing thing for me.

Szymanski: That was my goal: to give Andy a chance to do a comedy that involved penises, because I thought he'd be good at it. Also, I can admit that, since being a child of the '80s and being seven years old, if you sneak on HBO and see that the upcoming program has "N" for nudity, you might get a little excited. I think we're equal-opportunity nude-showers.

Miller: Some of the inspiration definitely comes from the actor who has been naked now, twice [in 7 Days in Hell and Tour de Pharmacy ]. Chris Romano is a good friend, and this is what he's become known for. [ Laughs ]

Samberg: The only recurring character in both of the specials is Chris Romano's dick.

Szymanski: We definitely, because of Romano, are like, "How are we going to work his penis in?" I tell this story a lot and I will tell it again.

When we were shooting 7 Days in Hell , before Chris Romano was naked in our threesome-on-the-court scene, it was the day before we were shooting, we didn't have that role cast, and we were sitting around going, "Shoot, who's going to come do this? Do we know any guys who are willing to be naked?" And as we were having that conversation, Murray got a text from Chris Romano that was a picture of his penis. That is one of his running jokes: He sends friends a lot of photos of him naked. I did not know Chris as well at the time, but they were like, "Oh, of course. Why don't we ask Romano? He shows his penis all the time." Now we will have him do that in every one of these things we make, I think.

Miller: It's certainly my muse. Already thinking about the next one. "What sport is funniest to work Romano's dick into?"

Samberg: I think it's safe to say that Chris Romano's dick is the Stan Lee of our universe. He'll have a cameo in every one.

Can you, Andy, talk about your character and how you created it? Samberg: Well, we were trying to think of a reason for why I was clearly not in good shape and not good at cycling, so that was a good jumping-off point. Then the fact that the Tour is open to people from all over the world and we tried to have a nice variety of involved countries. I believe that's how it went down.

Miller: I initially had you from another country, and then I think you came up with, maybe based on another character you had in stand-up, "Chad." Based on that stand-up joke you used to have.

Samberg: That was funny. His dad had a diamond mine and all that. It's almost like we were going for comedy. We were like, "What if we did the opposite?" [ Laughs ] I caught myself trying to explain a joke there and failed.

If you do more, would it be sports you can plausibly be an athlete in? Samberg: Regardless of whether I would be in them or not, the idea is that they're called the Legend of Sport series. That's on the poster. We're trying to make people notice that they exist—that's our version of 30 for 30 . Definitely our hope, and in the discussions we've been having with HBO, is to make more and do a different sport each time.

Miller: Your question implies you found Andy a believable tennis player and cyclist, which means his director did a great job.

The stroke seemed solid. Samberg: I was better at tennis than cycling, and better at tennis than Kit Harington—which was really a good win for me.

Miller: He had taken one lesson, so he wasn't a hard guy to beat.

Samberg: It's like Forte and French.

You're all rigorous in your preparation for these. Miller: You're starting to get a sense of how these things are made.

Szymanski: When you asked the question about Forte, I had an honest moment of panic. Because we had been shooting for 48 hours straight, we thought that Forte had knocked it out of the park with his French.

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‘Tour De Pharmacy’: How The HBO Cycling Mockumentary Packed In Its Incredible Stars, Including Lance Armstrong

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At the beginning of our interview, grasping for a way to describe the latest weirdo star-studden comedy sports special airing on HBO, IndieWire referred to “ Tour De Pharmacy ” as “the latest installment in the ‘Legends of Sports’ franchise.”

“I love that you said that,” star/executive producer Andy Samberg said.

“Are we allowed to say we have a franchise? I mean, I’ll take it,” writer Murray Miller said.

READ MORE: ‘Tour De Pharmacy’ Trailer: Orlando Bloom and Andy Samberg Spoof Doping and Biking in HBO Mockumentary

By “franchise,” we meant the ongoing “30 for 30”-inspired sports mockumentary series that began in the summer of 2015 with “7 Days in Hell,” a star-studded comedy special that chronicled a fictional tennis match that reached absurd heights. Starring Samberg and Kit Harrington, the cast also included Mary Steenburgen, Karen Gillan, Lena Dunham, Will Forte, June Squibb, Michael Sheen, Fred Armisen and more, including narration by Jon Hamm.

“Tour De Pharmacy,” the follow-up also premiering on HBO, tells the story of an alternate universe 1982 Tour De France, and associated chronicles of performance-enhancing drug abuse. Featuring even more stars, including Jeff Goldblum, Orlando Bloom, Freddie Highmore, Julia Ormond, Daveed Diggs, Danny Glover, John Cena, Dolph Lundgren, James Marsden, Maya Rudolph, Kevin Bacon and a pretty remarkable cameo by Lance Armstrong, “Pharmacy” also features the same unconventional runtime of approximately 40 minutes.

“It ended up finding its length in the end,” Samberg said. “It’s almost like a no man’s land between a half hour show and a movie. And we looked at each other and collectively decided, ‘Fuck it, let’s just have it be this length. It feels right.’ And I think that was a good call, because a lot of times there are feature length comedies that are really silly, and it is difficult to hold some attention and story lines for that long. So this has actually been kind of a fun experiment for us in terms of the overall running time.”

All three gave credit to HBO as being incredibly supportive of the project, even when it came to using the official HBO Sports logo at the beginning of each special. “You can see how crazy this is — what we tried to push for and make,” Miller said. “To get this script on your desk, for anyone to make this, I think is a bit nuts. And I think the fact that HBO’s letting us make this shows how awesome they are to work with.”

Added Samberg, “They were really excited about the idea that ‘7 Days in Hell’ would start and the casual viewer would think they were actually about to see a ‘Real Sports’ documentary. And then slowly, or not so slowly, you realize that it was something much crazier.”

However, they didn’t tell the actual HBO Sports department in advance. “HBO Sports is a slightly different entity than the HBO scripted department,” Miller said. “And I think they were also excited about surprising sports with it — when ‘7 Days’ came out, the Sports department was like, ‘What is this?'”

“It was a bit of a prank,” Miller said.

“HBO, the George Clooney of networks,” Samberg chimed in.

For “Pharmacy,” director Jake Szymanski used Betamax cameras to capture an early ’80s feel for the “actual” race, while filming sideline footage with VHS cameras. “We were actually running around with the old Beta-cams on the back of golf carts trying to film all these guys riding around on bikes,” he added.

All of that — in only four days, the shooting schedule for the race portions of the project. Meanwhile, the interview portions were spread out over a longer period of time — which was complicated for the production, but did ensure that they were able to get the level of talent they were hoping for.

“After those four days, we filmed more mainly with other talking head pieces, which was kind of based on the different celebrities’ schedules. Getting Phylicia [Rashad] and Kevin Bacon and Jeff Goldblum to say yes were all big wins. But they had slightly different schedules,” Szymanski said.

“I will say that doing it that way is aggravating from a production standpoint,” he added. “But it does allow us to get the cast really to be incredible people. Because if you tell someone, ‘Do you have two hours sometime in the next six months?,’ your odds of getting them go way up. So we did it that way for a lot of them, and it definitely served us well.”

“Tour de Pharmacy’s” most notable cameo was, of course, an individual all too familiar with the controversy at the heart of this fictional story. Miller confessed that when they sent him the script, “We really didn’t know what Lance Armstrong would say. But we were obviously delighted when he read it and went, ‘Yeah! I get it. I get the joke. I’m in!'”

Not only that, but he didn’t ask for any changes to the script. “He was very cool about everything we had written for him. I think the only changes we made were on the day trying to get through lines that we were trying to push a little farther. He was actually very open and into everything,” Miller said.

Another notable aspect of both specials is their unflinching use of male nudity, not exactly a given in the comedy world. “It really came up just because we wrote the streaker bit in ‘7 Days in Hell,'” Samberg said. “There had been actual instances of streakers at Wimbledon that Murray had researched, so we wanted to put that in. And I remember Murray and I talking about it, saying, ‘Well, if we’re going to have a girl run across naked, we have to have a guy, too.’ I can’t look my wife in the eye and tell her that it’s for comedy if we’re just doing a girl. We agreed that that was probably funnier anyway, and then once we did that, it sort of piled on.”

“It is both important and funny to have equal opportunity nudity,” Samberg added. “I really like that when the HBO little rating comes up and says, ‘This program contains nudity,’ everyone’s like, ‘Oh, I think I know what’s coming.’ And we get to go, ‘Oh, no, not quite. Not quite now.'”

The male streaker in that “7 Days” scene was actor/producer Chris Romano, who also appears in “Pharmacy” — both him, and his genitalia. According to Samberg, the “Legends of Sport” universe will likely always feature “a cameo from Chris Romano’s dick,” like Stan Lee in the Marvel films.

And Romano might want to brace himself for future such appearances, because Miller declared that he wants to keep making new installments “for the rest of our lives. I’m up for it. I want see one where Andy’s like 85.”

That said, don’t expect to get much prior notice. “Part of the fun of doing this so far, the first two, has been when they are finally announced, for people to not know a ton about it going in and then being like, ‘Holy shit! That person’s in it? All these people are in it? What is this thing?'” Samberg said. “I feel like that often gets spoiled nowadays, because there’s so much stuff that people just hammer social media and stuff with all the information about everything, so that by the time something comes out, you already kind of know it front to back.”

“Tour De Pharmacy” is available for streaming now on HBO Go and HBO NOW. 

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Tour de Pharmacy review: An enjoyable, ridiculous, yet uneasy satire of cycling's dark past

We review the latest HBO mockumentary, this time aimed at cycling: Tour de Pharmacy

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When a HBO mockumentary is released lampooning a fictional 1982 drug-fuelled Tour de France (four days after the current world champion was disqualified from the current Tour), you can’t help but laugh in uneasy contemplation of both the timing, and whether it flies too closely to the burn.

Taking place during the ‘iconic’ (but sadly fictional) 82’ Tour where all but five riders were disqualified for doping and caught bribing UCI president Kevin Bacon, we follow a motley crew of actors alongside creators Andy Samberg and Murray Miller on their whirlwind Tour de Pharmacy .

Riding in at a brisk pace of 39 minutes, packed to the roof with star cameos and vulgar gags, this jaunt from the genius behind Popstar: Never Stop Never Popping is less a full-blown feature and more a handful of comedy skits dumped together with loose affinity.

Who knew that the theft of Mike Tyson’s bike in his younger years led to a career in boxing as “I was better at punching people than cycling, and when I caught that thief well…”; it’s unique quirky moments like this (and also humorous blatant lies throughout the mockumentary) that create a believable grounding for the fake 1982 Tour in the annals of cycling history.

Standout moments include Orlando Bloom getting punched for causing a huge peloton crash in an early stage, and its hard not to laugh at similar thoughts perhaps going through the mind of Geraint Thomas in previous stages of the 2017 Tour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNUwVcp5iUY

It’s only when WWE wrestler John Cena (playing Austrian cyclist Gustav Ditters) body slams a fellow naked cyclist that the fight calms and racing begins once again…

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Tour de Pharmacy never holds a punch, as cyclists die from falling off cliffs with their genitals out, and ‘modern’ interviews interspersed for exposition feature outlandish cyclists such as Dolph Lundgren and Jeff Goldblum.

Our very own publication is parodied at one point as ‘Peloton Weekly’ asks if the Tour will be cancelled due to a lack of competitors, though overall the biggest cameo and jarring piece of satire goes to Big Tex himself.

“The last thing I need is to be seen on TV talking about doping again,” Lance Armstrong coyly jokes halfway through, in half-blacked out interview lighting that leaves little to the imagination about who the ‘mysterious drug informer’ actually is.

Is this documentary a stop on the redemption tour for Lance after his ultimate acceptance of his actions? Or does his role in the film feel nothing more than a cheap smirk at the years of harm, disrepute and discredit his actions caused the sport of cycling?

Satire often reflects the uncomfortable truth that we can’t voice ourselves, instead choosing to poke fun at something that could cause offence.

The irony of casting an actor from a background of pro wrestling - a ‘sport’ which features just as much finger pointing as cycling - is hardly lost.

The fact that Tour de Pharmacy was created shows the vast difference between public perception and our own ideas of pro cycling, and perhaps we’re a long way to go until being received as a clean sport by the man on the street.

Ultimately though my thoughts would be to watch this with your non-cycling friends, and reassure them that just like the film Borat , the antics in Tour de Pharmacy are hardly commonplace or reflective of real life.

In a mockumentary where only five cyclists compete at the slowest pace possible in the fictional 1982 Tour de France (as nobody wants to do all the drafting work at the front), you can’t help but chuckle at the obscenity of it all.

With the BBC commentator cycling alongside the riders performing ‘live on-bike’ interviews during the race, it raises the question whether Carlton Kirby and Sean Kelly should take a hint for the 2018 Tour de France and jump on the back of a moto alongside Greg Van Avermaet.

Tour de Pharmacy is an outright bonkers mockumentary that is sure to strike a nerve with the hardiest of cycling fans, though raises both serious contemplative moments and serious smiles in the deconstruction of cycle sport. For the most part, it’s an overly enjoyable watch.

Ultimately, we end on Lance Armstrong proudly stating “put any year of the Tour under a microscope, and you’ll find some dirt”.

Whilst this obscenely ironic farewell is a bitter pill for the audience to swallow, uttered by the perpetrator who is the biggest reason for the global controversy that spawned this HBO work of satire, you can’t help but reflect on past decades of the Tour and consider that there’s a glimmer of truth in this closing moment.

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All the action from stage five of the Giro d'Italia 2024 – as it happens

By James Shrubsall Last updated 8 May 24

'The more I've lifted in the gym, the faster I've felt on the bike,' says new record-holder Matt Rotherham

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Tour de Pharmacy

A mockumentary that chronicles the prevalence of doping in the world of professional cycling. A mockumentary that chronicles the prevalence of doping in the world of professional cycling. A mockumentary that chronicles the prevalence of doping in the world of professional cycling.

• Jake Szymanski
• Murray Miller
• Andy Samberg
• Orlando Bloom
• Freddie Highmore
• 33 User reviews
• 12 Critic reviews

• Adrian Baton

• Stu Ruckman

• Slim Robinson

• Gustav Ditters

• Rex Honeycut

• Lucy Flerng

• Adriana Baton

• Olusegun Okorocha

• Lance Armstrong

• Finnish Husband

• Ditmer Klerken
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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia Certain scenes were shot on VHS and Beta cameras for authenticity.
• Goofs The film mentions the coverage of the race by "France 2" channel. France 2 was created in 1992, in 1982 it was called "Antenne 2".

Stu Ruckman : In the autopsy, they found Juju was on EPO and cocaine, also some Insulin and Anabolic Steroids, Oxabolone, and, then Nandrolone, trace amounts of Norethandorlene and Furazabol. They even found some Heroin in his system. There was also Letrozole, Cyclazadone, some Estrogen Receptor Modulators, Raaloxifene and Tamoxifen, probably to ward off breast growth. A lot of Oxycodone in his blood. Phentermine, as well, Ortemamine, Bunolol, Lobatealol. Plus, apparently he had hopped Ethanol and taken a couple of MDAs. He clearly smoked some Crystal Meth and Crack and there was a Hormone from monkey testicles that he had cooked down into a broth that he drank. He also had apparently eaten at least one sandwich at Arby's.

User reviews 33

• frukostrast
• Jul 10, 2017
• July 8, 2017 (United States)
• United States
• Eczacılar Pisti
• Legends of Sport
• Murray Miller Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 41 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Andy Samberg on ‘Tour de Pharmacy’, Jeff Goldblum, and the Future of ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’

The actor reveals how they got Lance Armstrong involved and talks about geeking out over Mark Hamill while producing 'Brigsby Bear'.

In 2015, HBO dropped a sports documentary called 7 Days in Hell that sure looked like a genuine chronicle of a legendary tennis match, but was actually an artfully concocted comedy from the minds of Andy Samberg , director Jake Szymanski , and writer Murray Miller . The trio have reunited for an all-new sports mockumentary follow-up of sorts called Tour de Pharmacy , debuting on HBO on July 8th, this time taking on the sport of cycling.

Narrated by Jon Hamm , this mockumentary chronicles a 1982 cycling event in all its silly glory, with Samberg, Orlando Bloom , Daveed Diggs , John Cena , and Freddie Highmore portraying the main players in that event while a litany of celebrities contextualize the story in modern day, talking head-style interviews. It’s a hilarious, insane, and surprisingly compelling watch complete with some genuine twists and turns and fantastic cameos (hint: listen closely to the voiceover work).

In anticipation of the film’s debut, I recently got to speak with Samberg for an exclusive interview about Tour de Pharmacy . We discussed how the project came together, the fast-paced production process, how they went about assembling the ridiculous ensemble cast, whether it was tough to convince Lance Armstrong to participate, and a lot more. Additionally, we also chatted about Kyle Mooney ’s excellent upcoming film Brigsby Bear , which Samberg produced, as well as Mark Hamill ’s performance in that film. We also touched on Brooklyn Nine-Nine ’s cliffhanger finale, if they’ve discussed an end point for the series yet, and the creative process on that show. And if you’re wondering why I didn’t bring up the sorely underseen Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping , watch this space—I conducted a lengthy, exclusive interview with the whole Lonely Island crew about all things Popstar that’ll be on Collider soon.  

If you liked 7 Days in Hell , I can pretty much guarantee you’ll dig Tour de Pharmacy . It’s a bonkers, funny ride that definitely doesn’t overstay its welcome, so I highly recommend checking it out. Read the full interview with Samberg below.

So how did this idea first come about? I know it's kind of the same team behind 7 Days in Hell .

ANDY SAMBERG: Yeah me and Murray Miller, and then Jake Szymanski directed it. Basically, after 7 Days in Hell , and kind of even before it, we had hoped that we could try and turn this into like a comedy 30 for 30 , or HBO Sports Presents kind of a thing. And then 7 Days in Hell , as far as we could tell, was received well, and we were really happy with it creatively, so we asked HBO if they'd be up for another one and they said "Absolutely." So we just started racking our brains for sports that we thought we could do funny stuff with, and cycling definitely leapt out at us. So we just kind of started to hammer it.

When did you guys shoot this? Because I know you shot 7 Days in Hell super quickly. Was it kind of a similar production process on this one?

SAMBERG: It was. It was definitely a little more ambitious, but not totally dissimilar. We shot it last summer, right before I started shooting the most recent season of Brooklyn , and I think the primary shooting day, like all the cycling stuff, was like four days, and that was intense, heavy, big shoot days in the mountains all around LA and outside of LA. And then, we just sort of pick up talking heads throughout the year to finish it, which is how we did 7 Days also.

Is it mostly scripted, or is there a lot of kind of finding it on the day?

SAMBERG: Mostly scripted, and then— Actually the majority of the time we improvise and add stuff is in the talking heads. So we'll set an hour or two hours, whatever the actor has, to sit down with somebody, and we'll have a ton of alts to try with them, and then once we're there, Murray, Jake and myself will come up with stuff and throw it out as we're shooting.

The talking heads are great. I knew that J.J. Abrams was in the cast, and I was like, "Oh, is he playing like an older James Marsden?" and then it's like, no, it's J.J. Abrams, filmmaker.

SAMBERG: (Laughs) I was so excited to do it with J.J., he's so funny.

How did that come about?

SAMBERG: He and I have been kind of friends since I hosted the MTV Movie Awards. I did this video called "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions." I was obsessed with J.J. for all of the stuff he'd done before, but then especially at that moment, he had just made the first Star Trek movie, the reboot that he did, and I was obsessed with it, and I also knew that he played music and stuff, so I asked him to come do the keyboard solo in that video with Will Ferrell and me. And we kind of just got to be friendly through that, and I've stayed in touch since then, and when we had this whole bit in Tour de Pharmacy about the French New Wave in filmmaking and stuff, and somebody who could speak really whimsically about filmmaking, and I was like, "Oh my God, I've gotta ask J.J. because he's arguably the biggest director in the world." And how funny would that be? And he was totally game for it. It was funny.

He's so great in it, he's really funny.

SAMBERG: Yeah, I agree, I thought he killed it. I'm super happy.

I mean, the whole movie is silly, but when you see that Jeff Goldblum is playing the older version of you, what's it like to not only cast Jeff Goldblum as the older version of yourself, but to watch that play out?

SAMBERG: (Laughs) I mean, it was a dream come true obviously. In retrospect, we shot his stuff after we shot my stuff, and I think if we'd shot him first, I probably would have leaned harder into doing a young Goldblum. And also, I will say, it's hilarious that he's in better shape now than I'm supposed to be in 1982 as him. Because he is fit. A real tall drink of water.

He seems totally game to just really ham it up, and just go super silly on this.

SAMBERG: Yeah, and he was swimming in it. Like, when we shot with him, he did like 20 takes with every line. It was definitely one of those cliché moments of like, everyone on set was trying hard not to laugh at takes, because he's such a goof. And you know, it's Goldblum. He's a legend.

Yeah, there's no one else like him. And the rest of the cast is terrific too. I didn't know I needed a comedy with Daveed Diggs and John Cena, but I mean, here we are. And Freddie Highmore. How did all of that casting come about?

SAMBERG: Yeah, he was great, and also just the sweetest guy, Freddie, I love him. Yeah, it all weirdly just came together. I mean, the cool thing about doing this one was that we had 7 Days in Hell as the calling card a little bit, so when we started casting, we were just like, "Oh, you know who would be great is Freddie Highmore and John Cena," and we just called up people and were like, "Tell them to watch 7 Days in Hell ," and if they like that, then, it's gonna be like that. It made it really nice in that, everyone who showed up was like—John Cena kept being like, "Yeah, let's get weird. Let's fucking get weird, I'm up for it. Let's do it." Because he came in being like, "Yeah, it's gonna be bonkers." And when you have everyone there sort of understanding what you're going for, you generally attract people that are into that. So it was really smooth actually.

Was it tough to convince Lance Armstrong for this? Because I thought maybe he'll be in it for a couple of scenes, but he's in the whole movie.

SAMBERG: Yeah. It was not that bad. We figured it would either be impossible or it would be a yes, depending on wherever he felt like he was at with everything. But we sat down, we're like, "We're making a comedy about cycling and the tour, how do we not at least ask him?" And Murray wrote all that stuff for him, and it was making us laugh so much, we're like, "Fuck it, let's just try." And so we sent it to him, and he was into it. He was just like, "Yeah, fuck it, it's funny." We're like, "All right, great." We had one chat with him, and he was perfectly pleasant.

He’s really funny in the movie.

SAMBERG: He also tried a lot of weird shit we threw at him. Going into it, I think he was like nervous going into it, and then once he was there doing it, I think he started having fun, and he started screwing around with it more. We ended up with even more that we expected.

When he just thinks that he's incognito and just goes off on terrible rants about like foster dogs and stuff, I was just kind of gasped.

SAMBERG: (Laughs) Yeah, it was very fun. It's such a dumb bit.

And that's kind of the conceit of the movie, that's why I'm a big fan of your stuff, is that it's very silly, but it works. This kind of movie could come off as just a really extended  SNL  sketch that gets old really fast, but I feel like there's some dynamism to it, and an actual story that propels it forward, and it's engaging to watch, while also like, "What the fuck is happening?"

SAMBERG: Awesome, well thank you. We tried super hard in editing to make that the case. So I appreciate you saying it. When you do something that's super bit-heavy, you definitely struggle to find the ones that work, and not have it overstay its welcome. And I felt like something people responded really positively to about  7 Days in Hell  was that we didn't waste a lot of their time, and that has kind of been how we've done it Lonely Island style, we've always wanted —our digital shorts got shorter and shorter the longer we were at  SNL , and we tried to keep  Popstar  really short, and I don't know ... All of my favorite comedies are short, I'll say.

Yeah, and this feels like the perfect length, the 50 minutes for this kind of HBO Sports mockumentary thing, I feel like is really perfect.

SAMBERG: Yeah. But I'm glad you like the story structure of it all too, because that was part of what attracted us to doing sports mockumentaries. All those  30 for 30  episodes, they hook you in because you know that they have a beginning, middle, and an end, and they basically tell you what it's gonna be, but you just have fun watching it anyway.

Yeah, and it was surprisingly wrapped up in who's gonna win, and then it's kind of like, "Oh, Daveed Diggs is a dairy farmer now, I guess he’s out.” And then you just keep throwing curve balls to change that up.

SAMBERG: (Laughs) Yeah, we try to keep people on their toes a little.

I also appreciate your commitment to graphic male nudity in these movies. Was that a stipulation of doing another one?

SAMBERG: It was a self-appointed stipulation. We just find it so funny. But we definitely are big supporters of equal opportunity nudity. When you do HBO, obviously, there's a lot of boobage, but definitely pushing for more wang is a good thing.

Have you guys talked about doing another one? Do you have an idea of what kind of sport you might want to tackle next if you do another one?

SAMBERG: We do want to do another one. We have a few ideas that we like, but we haven't decided yet. But I'll tell Collider first thing when we decide (laughs).

Okay, thank you. I would happily break that news.

SAMBERG: You guys are the guys (laughs).

Well I also wanted to ask about  Brigsby Bear , which I saw at Sundance, and it's fantastic, really surprising, really sweet. What was it like producing someone else's movie, and how did that kind of come about?

SAMBERG: Well, I agree with you, I love that movie. It came about that we, Lonely Island, have a production company now, and that script got sent to us, and we obviously love [star/co-writer] Kyle [Mooney] and [director] Dave [McCary] already. We were part of the slow movement of people that were recommending them to  SNL  before they got hired, because we loved their stuff. And we read that script, and we were like, "Holy shit, this is awesome, this has to get made." So we we'd love to help any way we could, and Phil Lord and Chris Miller also did, and we kind of all joined forces to try and get it done. My main contribution, personally, was being in it I think, and now talking about it. But our then head producer, Billy Rosenberg, played a huge part, and we just gave him our thoughts. But honestly it's really their deal. Kyle and Dave did a really awesome job, they knew what they wanted it to be tonally, and they're so specific, that's why we love their stuff so much. So, we kind of just let them do their thing and gave them help wherever they needed it, and it was mostly like logistical stuff, because creatively, they know exactly what they're doing.

I really like Kyle's stuff on  SNL , it's a little idiosyncratic, but I'm a big fan, and that movie just felt like being dialed in 100% into his mind. And the kind of stuff that he does.

SAMBERG: Agreed, and he's great in it. And everyone was great in it, but Mark Hamill in particular, I thought was so excellent, and such a cool thing to watch him do.

He's incredible, and he brings this weight of his role as a voice actor, which is a whole other side of him that some people don't know, but some people are huge fans of. But he really brings that kind of foundation to it.

SAMBERG: Yeah, you can see little hints of Joker in there.

Yeah. And he's so good at it, that towards the beginning of the movie, you're not necessarily sure if that's his voice or not, because he's pretty great at switching that up.

SAMBERG: Yeah. He's a super talented dude. And he's Luke Skywalker (laughs).

Did you get to go to set and kind of barrage him with  Star Wars  questions or anything?

SAMBERG: We did cross over. When I shot my stuff, he was on his way in, so we all went out and had dinner one night. I tried not to jock him too hard specifically about  Star Wars , but I definitely was soaking up just meeting him and getting to hang with him. Super nice guy.

Yeah, he really seems like it.

SAMBERG: Yeah, it's such a gift when that happens, you're like "Thank goodness you're nice."

It's a small movie, and it doesn't have a ton of big stars in it, but I feel like him lending his presence, especially now, with the resurgence of  Star Wars , will get a lot more asses in seats.

SAMBERG: That is definitely the hope. And I think the themes in the movie, sort of this undying love of creativity and collaboration and stuff, I think that stuff really spoke to him. And it's a great part, he murders it. Really, there's a few scenes with him where I was like, "Holy shit, this is good." I'm glad we're a part of it.

I also really love  Brooklyn Nine-Nine . It's a sitcom that continues to be funny, but it feels ambitious in its storytelling; it's not one of these sitcoms that's been going on for years, and it's just the same stuff over and over again. Was there any trepidation on your part on leaving on that big of a cliffhanger for this finale, knowing that it is kind of possible that you guys might not be back?

SAMBERG: Not because we thought we might not be back. We were operating under the assumption that we would be back. But man, if we hadn't come back, that would have been a sucky end.

It’s a great episode.

SAMBERG: And that's one of the best parts about doing a TV show, it's a weird thing to do a TV show and being like, "Well maybe we won't get to finish telling our story." It's such a strange creative endeavor in that way. But no, we felt pretty good about coming back. Just in general I think you're like, "This is a pretty ambitious thing to bite off. It has lot of potential darkness to it, and also, how do you get out of it and all that stuff. But I feel like Dan Goor and the writers have done such a good job so far, in terms of making things feel earned, but also keep trying to keep everyone's attention, and have twists and turns and that kind of stuff. But also not sacrificing sort of the comfort food aspect of the show as well, which is like, these people that you hopefully want to hang out with and spend time with.

Yeah, I mean, I know Mike Schur is onto  The Good Place  now, but I know that he and Dan both worked on  Parks and Rec , and something that was great about that show is that no matter how ridiculous and how mean they were to Jerry, it felt like these characters were never outright mean to each other, they loved each other, and that's very effervescent in  Brooklyn Nine-Nine . And I think it makes it stand out as opposed to like, "Oh, let's just be mean spirited to get a couple laughs."

SAMBERG: Yes, agreed, and that's definitely the heart of it, and I think that's why Mike initially, and Dan also, when they first asked me to take part, I think that's part of why they asked me specifically, because I lean towards that, even when I'm doing sort of dirtier, darker stuff, I never want it to be mean spirited or trying to take anyone down in a masochistic way. And that was why I loved  Parks  also, it's such a sweet show, while also having really high quality comedy in it, which is tough to pull off.

Yeah, and I feel like you guys have created this really great dynamic with the cast. And now, like having been on it a few years, are you kind of involved in the storytelling aspects, or where the characters are going at the beginning of each season, or is that kind of Dan and the writers still just kind of doing their thing?

SAMBERG: It's mostly them. Dan and I will talk all the time, and he'll sort of run stuff by me to get feedback. Sometimes he'll just use me as a sounding board to hear himself talk it out, and I'll say like one thing, and he'll go, "Right, right, okay great, you figured it out." Well, you did most of it… But he definitely checks in with me a lot about that kind of stuff, and every now and again I'll have a suggestion or be like, "Just make sure that we stay true to this," because I feel like people are gonna really want to know how that played out, or stuff like that. Just little reminders here and there. And then, my major contribution creatively on  Brooklyn  is on set. Usually, I'll throw things in and sort of get with whatever writer’s on that week and we'll come up with different ways to try stuff, and then I also just give a ton of editing notes with Dan.

This story really did take an interesting direction this year, and I feel like that's also something that they did well on  Parks , was changing the dynamic a lot in terms of the storytelling. Have you guys discussed kind of an end date, or where you want the show to go, or how many more seasons you want it to run for?

SAMBERG: We haven't. I think we're kind of playing it by ear in that regard. I think we're not going to rush anything out of fear, but I also think just because we're entering our fifth season, just as the way I am personally as a viewer, if I was into the fifth season of the show, I would want to see some progress with the characters, and I think that will happen accordingly. But nothing is set in stone yet, it’s sort of amalgamous in that we'll be halfway through a season and then suddenly Dan will be like, "We decided we wanted to do this," and I'll be like, "Great, let's do it." It's not always 100% mapped out, at times you just kind of feel your way through it, and when you have 22 episodes, that actually becomes an option, you don't have to write them all and tweak them all and then post them all at once.

Do you have any indication of where things are going next season, is there anything you can kind of tease for fans of where things might pick up?

SAMBERG: I don't think I can, just because we left in on a cliffhanger. All I'll say is, the stuff I've talked to Dan about, I really like. I think it's gonna be super cool.

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Everyone is in Andy Samberg's doping mockumentary. Even Lance Armstrong.

'Tour de Pharmacy' premieres July 8 on HBO

Andy Samberg showed that he had some balls — tennis balls — by starring and executive producing the 2015 HBO mockumentary Seven Days in Hell , about the longest tennis match in history. Now he’s cranking up the absurdity with HBO mockumentary Tour de Pharmacy , which has fun with the doping scandals that have tarnished the cycling world.

Samberg is just one of many famous faces hitting the road; the cast also includes Orlando Bloom, Jeff Goldblum, Maya Rudolph, Julia Ormond, Dolph Lundgren, Mike Tyson, Freddie Highmore, Will Forte, James Marsden, John Cena, Daveed Diggs, J.J. Abrams, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kevin Bacon, Danny Glover, Phylicia Rashad, Nathan Fielder, Joe Buck, and Chris Webber. Did we leave anybody off? Let’s think… oh, right: Lance Armstrong .

That’s right, the disgraced Tour de France legend pokes fun at himself by playing a not-so- anonymous informant.

Check out the minute-long trailer above. Tour de Pharmacy premieres July 8 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on HBO.

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Andy Samberg on His HBO Sports-Comedy Tour de Pharmacy , Male Genitalia, and What’s Next for Brooklyn Nine-Nine

The year was 1982, an insane and little-known blip in sports history when so many riders got caught doping in the Tour de France that only five out of 170 were allowed to continue the race — all of whom almost definitely were also on drugs. That’s the delightful premise of HBO’s Tour de Pharmacy , the newest documentary-style sports comedy from the team behind HBO’s 7 Days in Hell , about a fictional seven-day tennis match between Andy Samberg in a peroxide-blonde mullet and Kit Harington in short-shorts.

This time around, Samberg, who executive-produced the 39-minute special, out on Saturday, July 8, is back in green spandex as the first African rider in the Tour (as Adewale Akinnuoye-Abaje points out, this dude is a guy who would put Bob Marley on the jukebox and shout out “African music!”). He’s joined in the fab five by John Cena, who cheerily claims he got this big naturally; Daveed Diggs, as Jackie Robinson’s nephew trying to break the color barrier in another sport; Freddie Highmore, secretly breaking another barrier and played by Julia Ormond in present-day interviews; and Orlando Bloom as doomed banned-substance lover JuJu Pepe. The packed cast includes Jon Hamm as the narrator, Jeff Goldblum, Dolph Lundgren, Danny Glover, Kevin Bacon, James Marsden, Maya Rudolph, Mike Tyson, J.J. Abrams, and, shockingly, Lance Armstrong, playing a not-so-secret informant.

We talked to Samberg about his bike-riding skills, how he got Armstrong to spoof himself, and what’s next for him with Brooklyn Nine-Nine . Bonus: He told us how he wants Game of Thrones to end.

Andy, I’m so glad you made this. I grew up watching the Tour de France with my dad and I think you captured the ethos pretty accurately. Oh good!

So, why do you love sports comedy so much? It’s sort of a combination of two things. The first one is I actually am a sports fan. I grew up playing sports and watching sports and I really have a genuine love for sports, so I also have watched a lot of sports documentaries — I enjoy the language of them. And the second one is I love doing comedy about machismo and male aggression and competitiveness, and I might also have an affinity for it, and those things together make for a rich tapestry of laughter. I hope!

What makes cycling so ripe for comedy? After the first one of these, 7 Days in Hell , which was about tennis, we were just trying to choose a sport that a) had a lot of comedic potential and b) was something that we could actually, physically shoot for not a crazy budget. And it turns out you can get a group of people together on bicycles in the mountains for less money than say, putting together a giant football stadium. [ Laughs .] So that helps. But honestly, the look of cycling we felt was funny if you got the right people doing it. John Cena in spandex on a tiny bicycle is a funny image, and that was one of places we started. Murray Miller, who wrote this and produces it with me, that was one of the first things he thought of that made us laugh.

And then on top of all that, there’s so much strange behavior surrounding the sport and we felt like it was a funny thing to really exaggerate and blow up for comedic purposes, all the stuff with PEDs and that. But when we started researching back even further, it turns out there was a really long history of crazy cheating behavior from the very beginning of the Tour and the beginning of cycling, because it was created to be impossible, physically.

Well, they’re doing 200 kilometers a day for three weeks up mountains. I should say, I have tremendous respect for cyclists. I know that this is a big goof on sort of the negative side of it, but having tried to cycle myself, which was really tough physically, especially in uphill mountains in the heat, you’re like, “Wow, this is fucking crazy!” The dedication that it takes to be in that good of a shape, it’s like marathon runners and cyclists — those are the people that really have that grinding long-distance mentality that’s hard to fathom for someone like me.

Were you doing a lot of your own cycling? Did you train? I didn’t train. I definitely should have trained. Yeah, the first one, I actually played a bit of tennis, so that was much easier. Luckily we had people like Orlando Bloom and James Marsden who are actually really confident and accomplished cyclists, so we leaned more on them in the action sports footage. [ Laughs .] My story line, not coincidentally, is all kind of lazily cruising through the countryside. It’s not a ton of hard-grinding cycling.

Well, there’s some hard-grinding off the bike for your character [who has an affair with another rider]. Yes, indeed. As is my norm.

Did you pick people for this special who actually knew about cycling so they could riff off of it better? I kept wondering the whole time if everyone was a true cycling fan and it made me so happy. It was a total coincidence with Orlando and Marsden. We wanted them just because we thought they would be awesome for the parts, and then we found out that they were avid cyclists and fans and knew a ton about it, and it really helped because they looked so pro. And then John Cena is just athletic, obviously, and in incredible shape, and Daveed Diggs is in incredible shape. Freddie Highmore had a balanced approach to cycling, and I was … not as good. [ Laughs .]

What would happen to you in the action sequences? I was winded a lot. Murray and our director Jake Szymanski were laughing at me the whole time we were editing, because when you go through footage you’re like, “Okay, here we are, we come through and here are all the cyclists. And then let’s wait ten seconds and … there’s Andy.” Like, sucking wind and looking down the lens super grumpy, just like, “It’s 120 degrees! Didn’t we get the shot?”

Let’s go through the insane cast. Freddie Highmore gives quite a performance, being both French and a woman pretending to be a man. Yeah, he is a delightful guy. I had never met him before, but so lovely and so sweet and very game performance-wise. He really dove in 100 percent from the jump and was awesome.

And when I saw the promo, I was really ready to think you guys weren’t going to get things right because you had Daveed Diggs in there, and there are almost no black cyclists . But it was impressive, the story made sense! Yeah, we were like, “How does this factor in?” Because we knew we didn’t want the cast to be just a big boring blob of white people. [ Laughs .]

Well, there are a lot of Latino guys in cycling. Yes, but, you know, just like all things, hopefully it’s diversifying a little. No? There are still no black people in cycling?

Almost none . Also, you’re releasing at the start of the second week of this year’s Tour de France.  Yeah, that’s very intentional. We did 7 Days in Hell around Wimbledon time as well. I think it’s a nice way to throw it in the mix.

You mentioned crazy cheating stories, and the one I know about is this really famous British cyclist Tom Simpson who had a heart attack going up Mont Ventoux in 1967 while on alcohol and amphetamines. Was that your basis for Orlando Bloom’s character? As we did with 7 Days in Hell , too, all the characters are pulled from various places and smushed into other, singular characters. But I do think that was a reference to that one.

How did you feel about wearing spandex? The cycling stuff I think we shot over four days. Spandex, in the beginning, it’s a little uncomfortable and you feel a little exposed and then you adjust. It’s like living in a nudist colony. It just becomes your life. [ Laughs .]

Did any of you try the cyclist trick of peeing off your bike? I don’t know if anyone actually did it. We were tempted a few times. Truthfully, it was so hot when we were shooting, I think we were all too dehydrated to even have pee in our bodies.

Were there spandex jokes you cut? Showing the nuts, showing the bolts? We shied away from it because we leaned really heavy on it for Chris Romano’s character, Yabin Dolchey. So we wanted to maybe keep it a little more out of view for the rest of it so it didn’t feel like tonnage.

But it was important that you have that in there? Oh yeah, we’ve got to show some male genitalia in everything we make. It came about sort of naturally in the first one, just in that we knew that we were going to do a scene with a streaker because that had happened at Wimbledon. And I talked to Murray and said, “If we do a scene with a naked girl we also have to also have a naked guy because we have to have equal-opportunity nudity,” and it made us laugh so much. And it’s our friend Chris Romano, who’s known for showing everyone his dick anyway, whether they want to see it or not. I should specify, he shows mostly dudes, so it’s not as offensive as it sounds. And we cast him and decided that we needed his dick to be a recurring character in all of these, and Murray wrote that part for him. And then we just kept piling onto it. There’s a fun scene with him and John Cena that we added on pretty much the day we shot it that was making us laugh pretty hard.

Tell me the story of getting Lance Armstrong for the movie. It’s not that good of a story. Murray wrote it in and we were laughing just because I really think it’s a funny joke, and we were like, “I doubt he would do it, but let’s ask because you never know.” And I had met him before because he had hosted SNL when I worked there, and we sent it and he said he thought it was funny and we hopped on the phone and I said, “It’s really what it seems like in the script. It’s a bit, and we might try some alt lines.” And he said, “Yeah, seems funny!” And we were like, “Okay, great!”

So we were very pleasantly surprised he was up for it, and that was kind of it. We flew to Austin and shot with him and hung out for about an hour. He was very down to try stuff. We did a bunch of alts and all of that stuff wound up in it.

Were you basically like, “I guess we’ll keep going since he’s still doing it”? Yeah! He was really not tripping. He was like, “Yup, that’s funny. Okay, I’ll try something like that. Yeah, seems funny.” It was really easy.

Do you think he’ll be surprised how much he’s in the movie? I mean, he knows what we shot because he said it all. [ Laughs .] But maybe he thought it wasn’t going to be expanded as much. By the way, the amount he was in it is way cut down. We had a lot more of him in it. It got to the point where people were like, “It’s all funny, but it’s distracting to the story at a certain point.”

How’s he doing? How’s Lance? He seemed good. We didn’t go too deep. It was just like, “I can’t believe this is happening and it’s very pleasant.” [ Laughs .] But yeah, we just sort of presented to him what we wanted to do and he was down. It was a very clinical shoot. We showed up, we shot his stuff, and we left.

How did you get the really random talking heads like J.J. Abrams and Mike Tyson, where you’re like, “Why are these guys in a cycling documentary”? Mike Tyson, that was one of those where we just asked and he was like, “Yeah, let’s do it.” So we flew to Vegas and shot him. And I think he just really liked the material we wrote. There’s a whole Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out [video game] bit in it that was very nostalgic and fun for us. And J.J. Abrams I’m just sort of friendly with through various things. I asked him to be in a video I did for the Movie Awards for MTV when I hosted a ways back, and we’ve stayed in touch since then. We have this whole thing about French cinema and the French New Wave, and I was like, “It would be incredible to get J.J. to do this.” And I basically kept emailing him until he said yes.

When do you go back to shooting Brooklyn Nine-Nine ? Late July. So in a few weeks we start shooting again.

How long do you think you’ll keep doing it? Just in it for as long as it runs? Yeah, I think that’s the idea. I mean, I don’t give it a ton of thought weirdly. Maybe I ought to think about it more. Brooklyn Nine-Nine from the jump has been something where I’ve just been like, “Yes!” Mike [Schur] and Dan [Goor] came and pitched it to me and I was like, “Yes! I wasn’t looking to do this, but if it’s you guys, yes! Great!” And then it got picked up and I was like, “Yes! I like this!” [ Laughs .] It’s all been very knee-jerk and just following my intuition on it because it’s just great people and I think it’s turned into something I really enjoy doing and creatively I’m very proud of and everyone who I work with there is super-nice. I know this sounds like a very political way of talking about it, but it’s very easy because it’s just real.

Like, I did one episode of Parks & Rec when they were doing that, and I remember after I’d wrapped that episode talking to Amy Poehler about it and being like, “Everyone’s so nice! This is such a good life!” [ Laughs .] And she was like, “Yeah, it’s awesome. You have your own little work family and it’s a very pleasant way to do comedy.” So when it came up I was like, “Yes! Let’s do it!” So that’s a really long way of saying I am happy to do it for as long as we are allowed and as long as we feel creatively like we have things to do with it.

It just seems like you guys are having a ton of fun. Watching it you can tell. Yes, right from the beginning there was this weird thing where the cast all just decided to be friends, like, right out of the gate. [ Laughs .] I’d say I could describe every person in the cast where they were like, “Yeah, this is exactly what I want to be doing.” It was really good timing for everybody in that way, and everyone comedically does something different so everyone has their own land and can co-exist and everyone scores. It’s just — it’s a dream job.

Wasn’t it on the fence last year with the network? They made us wait a long time before they announced it. I was never worried, but maybe I should’ve been. If they’d been like, “You guys are done,” it would’ve been shocking to me at that point, because the way the season ended, it would’ve been like, “Ew, that sucks.” But I wasn’t worried about it. Maybe moving forward I will be, but it feels like people seem to still enjoy the show and the way that people watch TV is changing so much and changing so fast. There are so many different places and ways people watch that I honestly have lost my gauge on whether we’re doing well or doing well enough to stay on, so we just keep making it and trying to make it good.

I’m pretty sure you’ll be employable should something happen. Do you have any summer TV recommendations for the rest of us? I’m a little behind, to be honest, catching up on family stuff.

You didn’t lock yourself into a bunker to watch every single TV show? I didn’t. But I’d love to right now. That sounds actually delightful. No, we were about halfway through Fargo this season and I was loving that. We actually hadn’t seen any of Fargo and my wife and I binged the whole first two seasons and got halfway through the new one before we got busy with family stuff, and that was obviously mind blowing. I can’t believe it took us that long to watch. It was so good.

Going biking after this? Absolutely. Right after this. My butt is finally not sore anymore from shooting.

You’re traumatized. It’s over. Never biking again. Yeah, it’s like that surfer who got attacked by the shark, it took him a long time to get back in the water. [ Laughs .] I shouldn’t make fun of that. He was actually a super-inspirational story. But, yeah, it took me a while just physically in the butt area to get on a bike again.

But you have? Oh yeah. I’ll do a pleasant, cushioned-seated bike ride. I’ll do like a Citi Bike.

They are great seats. Exactly. Well, thank you for watching and writing about this. Hopefully your dad will like it, too.

I’ll have to give him my HBO log-in. Random fun fact about my dad: We live near Santa Fe and George R.R. Martin owns a local movie theater there … Oh my god!

… and he’ll show Game of Thrones at the local theater and my dad will drive like an hour to get there and then wait two hours in line to see it, even though I have given him my HBO log-in. Will George come??

Yeah, I think he introduces all of them and he’ll bring guests, like he brought Shae. Well, that makes it worth it. It’s arguably the best show of all time.

Coming back July 16! Coming back in a big way. [ Starts chuckling to himself .] It would be amazing if after all this, the Game of Thrones finale was just the White Walkers being like, “Eh, forget it. We’re just gonna go back.” [ Laughs .]

“We don’t really like it down South.” “It’s too hot. Anyways, have fun.” People would be like, “No!”

I hope you write that in. I’m sure you know people. I’ll pitch it to those guys.

You’re already in with HBO. You could make it happen. I definitely could get it to them, the real question is what the reaction would be. I think it would probably be anger.

Like, “How did we not think of this yet? We were doing a comedy this whole time!” [ Laughs .] I’m imagining they’d be more like, “Yup, Samberg ruins another one!”

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HBO's 'Tour de Pharmacy' Will Poke Fun at Pro Cycling, Mockumentary-Style

​With a star-studded cast including Andy Samberg and Kevin Bacon, it's going to be interesting

RELATED:  16 Great Bike Movies That Aren’t 'Breaking Away'

"In 1982, during a dark and fictitious time in cycling history, the sport’s most venerable, time-honored race was marred by the doping of virtually all of its competitors," reads HBO's film description . "Riddled with nefarious characters, that year’s competition was a hornet’s nest of moral depravity." (Celebrate actual Tour de France history with our limited-edition Colors of Victory poster , a graphic depiction of the race's winningest bikes.)

Tour de Pharmacy will feature some of Hollywood's top funny people, including Daniel Glover, Maya Rudolph, Orlando Bloom, Phylicia Rashad, and, of course, Samberg in the starring roll. Kevin Bacon will also be in the film, and for those in the know, it won't be Bacon's first stint in cycling cinema: He played a courier in the 1986 film Quicksilver . 

Also noteworthy is the inclusion of Lance Armstrong as he acts his way through revealing doping secrets as a not-so-anonymous source. Too soon?

Watch the trailer here:

RELATED: The Most Memorable Doping Excuses in Cycling

While the mockumentary will surely take some jabs at cycling, there's reason to believe it might pay some respect to the sport's culture as well. This isn't Samberg's first foray into sports mockumentaries: Back in 2015, he teamed up with HBO to roast professional tennis in 7 Days In Hell, a film that made an effort to show knowledge of the sport's history and culture. The Tour de Pharmacy s cript was written by Murray Miller of King of the Hill , so expect a combination of bold and subtle humor

Oh—and for those wondering what really happened back in 1982: Bernard Hinault, the Badger, took his fourth consecutive Tour de France win. (It's doubtful that HBO will stick to the narrative of that race, since it was called "boring" by most commentators.)

Find out Quincy the mini horse's pick for the Tour:

.css-1t6om3g:before{width:1.75rem;height:1.75rem;margin:0 0.625rem -0.125rem 0;content:'';display:inline-block;-webkit-background-size:1.25rem;background-size:1.25rem;background-color:#F8D811;color:#000;background-repeat:no-repeat;-webkit-background-position:center;background-position:center;}.loaded .css-1t6om3g:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/bicycling/static/images/chevron-design-element.c42d609.svg);} News

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'Tour De Pharmacy' Trailer: Andy Samberg's Sports Mockumentary Spoofs Doping In Cycling

Back in 2015, HBO debuted a sports mockumentary called 7 Days in Hell that chronicled fictional tennis players Aaron Williams (Andy Samberg) and Charles Poole (Kit Harington) who played a match to end all tennis matches: a seven-day, five-set marathon that took everything out of them. It was a hilarious 45-minute foray into tennis presented in the style of HBO Sports documentaries, and now the world of competitive cycling is getting the same treatment.

Tour De Pharmacy focuses on five cyclists in 1982 as they dealt with the controversy of nearly every athlete doping in order to get an edge on competition. The cast includes Andy Samberg, John Cena, Freddie Highmore, Daveed Diggs, Orlando Bloom and they somehow got Lance Armstrong to appear and even poke fun at his own relationship with doping.

Watch the Tour De Pharmacy trailer below.

This is just a teaser trailer, and a big chunk of it is spent touting all the names involved. But when you have a movie that also features Jeff Goldblum, Danny Glover, Dolph, Lundgren, Julia Ormond, James Marsden, Kevin Bacon, Nathan Fielder, Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, Joe Buck, Mike Tyson, J.J. Abrams, Phylicia Rashad, Chris Webber and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje , you want everyone to know.

What I love most is that they make no attempts to make the 1980s wigs and fake facial hair look convincing at all. But that Lance Armstrong bit at the end was just awesome. I'm glad that Armstrong has reached a point where he can make fun of the fact that he cheated to win the Tour de France several times.

Tour De Pharmacy is executive produced by Andy Samberg and Murray Miller , and the latter also wrote the script, with Jake Szymanski ( Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, 7 Days in Hell ) directing. It premieres on HBO on July 8 at 10pm ET/PT.

In 1982, during a dark and fictitious time in cycling history, the sport's most venerable, time-honored race was marred by the doping of virtually all of its competitors. Riddled with nefarious characters, that year's competition was a hornet's nest of moral depravity. Through the perspective of five riders, TOUR DE PHARMACY gives an inside look into the grim realities of the darkest event in a sport notoriously tainted by controversy.

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‘Tour De Pharmacy’: How The HBO Cycling Mockumentary Packed In Its Incredible Stars, Including Lance Armstrong

At the beginning of our interview, grasping for a way to describe the latest weirdo star-studden comedy sports special airing on HBO, IndieWire referred to “ Tour De Pharmacy ” as “the latest installment in the ‘Legends of Sports’ franchise.”

“I love that you said that,” star/executive producer Andy Samberg said.

“Are we allowed to say we have a franchise? I mean, I’ll take it,” writer Murray Miller said.

READ MORE: ‘Tour De Pharmacy’ Trailer: Orlando Bloom and Andy Samberg Spoof Doping and Biking in HBO Mockumentary

By “franchise,” we meant the ongoing “30 for 30”-inspired sports mockumentary series that began in the summer of 2015 with “7 Days in Hell,” a star-studded comedy special that chronicled a fictional tennis match that reached absurd heights. Starring Samberg and Kit Harrington, the cast also included Mary Steenburgen, Karen Gillan, Lena Dunham, Will Forte, June Squibb, Michael Sheen, Fred Armisen and more, including narration by Jon Hamm.

“Tour De Pharmacy,” the follow-up also premiering on HBO, tells the story of an alternate universe 1982 Tour De France, and associated chronicles of performance-enhancing drug abuse. Featuring even more stars, including Jeff Goldblum, Orlando Bloom, Freddie Highmore, Julia Ormond, Daveed Diggs, Danny Glover, John Cena, Dolph Lundgren, James Marsden, Maya Rudolph, Kevin Bacon and a pretty remarkable cameo by Lance Armstrong, “Pharmacy” also features the same unconventional runtime of approximately 40 minutes.

“It ended up finding its length in the end,” Samberg said. “It’s almost like a no man’s land between a half hour show and a movie. And we looked at each other and collectively decided, ‘Fuck it, let’s just have it be this length. It feels right.’ And I think that was a good call, because a lot of times there are feature length comedies that are really silly, and it is difficult to hold some attention and story lines for that long. So this has actually been kind of a fun experiment for us in terms of the overall running time.”

All three gave credit to HBO as being incredibly supportive of the project, even when it came to using the official HBO Sports logo at the beginning of each special. “You can see how crazy this is — what we tried to push for and make,” Miller said. “To get this script on your desk, for anyone to make this, I think is a bit nuts. And I think the fact that HBO’s letting us make this shows how awesome they are to work with.”

Added Samberg, “They were really excited about the idea that ‘7 Days in Hell’ would start and the casual viewer would think they were actually about to see a ‘Real Sports’ documentary. And then slowly, or not so slowly, you realize that it was something much crazier.”

However, they didn’t tell the actual HBO Sports department in advance. “HBO Sports is a slightly different entity than the HBO scripted department,” Miller said. “And I think they were also excited about surprising sports with it — when ‘7 Days’ came out, the Sports department was like, ‘What is this?'”

“It was a bit of a prank,” Miller said.

“HBO, the George Clooney of networks,” Samberg chimed in.

For “Pharmacy,” director Jake Szymanski used Betamax cameras to capture an early ’80s feel for the “actual” race, while filming sideline footage with VHS cameras. “We were actually running around with the old Beta-cams on the back of golf carts trying to film all these guys riding around on bikes,” he added.

All of that — in only four days, the shooting schedule for the race portions of the project. Meanwhile, the interview portions were spread out over a longer period of time — which was complicated for the production, but did ensure that they were able to get the level of talent they were hoping for.

“After those four days, we filmed more mainly with other talking head pieces, which was kind of based on the different celebrities’ schedules. Getting Phylicia [Rashad] and Kevin Bacon and Jeff Goldblum to say yes were all big wins. But they had slightly different schedules,” Szymanski said.

“I will say that doing it that way is aggravating from a production standpoint,” he added. “But it does allow us to get the cast really to be incredible people. Because if you tell someone, ‘Do you have two hours sometime in the next six months?,’ your odds of getting them go way up. So we did it that way for a lot of them, and it definitely served us well.”

“Tour de Pharmacy’s” most notable cameo was, of course, an individual all too familiar with the controversy at the heart of this fictional story. Miller confessed that when they sent him the script, “We really didn’t know what Lance Armstrong would say. But we were obviously delighted when he read it and went, ‘Yeah! I get it. I get the joke. I’m in!'”

Not only that, but he didn’t ask for any changes to the script. “He was very cool about everything we had written for him. I think the only changes we made were on the day trying to get through lines that we were trying to push a little farther. He was actually very open and into everything,” Miller said.

Another notable aspect of both specials is their unflinching use of male nudity, not exactly a given in the comedy world. “It really came up just because we wrote the streaker bit in ‘7 Days in Hell,'” Samberg said. “There had been actual instances of streakers at Wimbledon that Murray had researched, so we wanted to put that in. And I remember Murray and I talking about it, saying, ‘Well, if we’re going to have a girl run across naked, we have to have a guy, too.’ I can’t look my wife in the eye and tell her that it’s for comedy if we’re just doing a girl. We agreed that that was probably funnier anyway, and then once we did that, it sort of piled on.”

“It is both important and funny to have equal opportunity nudity,” Samberg added. “I really like that when the HBO little rating comes up and says, ‘This program contains nudity,’ everyone’s like, ‘Oh, I think I know what’s coming.’ And we get to go, ‘Oh, no, not quite. Not quite now.'”

The male streaker in that “7 Days” scene was actor/producer Chris Romano, who also appears in “Pharmacy” — both him, and his genitalia. According to Samberg, the “Legends of Sport” universe will likely always feature “a cameo from Chris Romano’s dick,” like Stan Lee in the Marvel films.

And Romano might want to brace himself for future such appearances, because Miller declared that he wants to keep making new installments “for the rest of our lives. I’m up for it. I want see one where Andy’s like 85.”

That said, don’t expect to get much prior notice. “Part of the fun of doing this so far, the first two, has been when they are finally announced, for people to not know a ton about it going in and then being like, ‘Holy shit! That person’s in it? All these people are in it? What is this thing?'” Samberg said. “I feel like that often gets spoiled nowadays, because there’s so much stuff that people just hammer social media and stuff with all the information about everything, so that by the time something comes out, you already kind of know it front to back.”

“Tour De Pharmacy” is available for streaming now on HBO Go and HBO NOW.

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‘Tour de Pharmacy’ Is a Cycling Spoof Ridiculous Enough for the Real Sport

Andy Samberg and Murray Miller's new mockumentary, complete with a strange supporting role for Lance, tests tortured fans' sense of humor

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>Download the app .

Anyone who thinks pro cycling fans lack a sense of humor doesn’t watch pro cycling. Following the sport demands an appreciation of the absurd. In last year’s Tour de France, the man in the yellow jersey jogged up a long portion of Mount Ventoux without a bicycle . In the recent Giro d’Italia, the overall leader had to pull off to the side of a Swiss mountain road before a global television audience and take an emergency dump under a road sign. Numerous athletes who have been caught doping have offered public, harebrained explanations for their positives. I have loved pro cycling with all of my heart for decades, but at times it can seem like a living, breathing caricature of a professional sport.

Into this morass, just days after the reigning world champion was told to pack his bags and leave the Tour de France for possibly causing a bad crash, steps a short film that is an actual parody of pro cycling. Tour de Pharmacy , which debuts on Saturday, July 8, is a mockumentary from Andy Samberg and Murray Miller in the style of their previous film 7 Days in Hell , which mocks championship tennis. I found 7 Days in Hell to be quite funny, but it is worth noting that I lack a deep emotional investment in grass-court tennis. For a lifelong cycling fan, Tour de Pharmacy felt considerably more personal. And by personal, I mean painful.

Andy Samberg talks Tour de Pharmacy on the Outside Podcast

The film takes direct aim at the sport’s doping problem by revisiting a 1982 Tour de France that never really happened—one in which the riders are so shameless that it becomes known as the “Tour de Pharmacy.” I think people who know little more about the sport than the public rise and fall of Lance Armstrong will enjoy the film’s easy laughs, but passionate cycling fans will have quite a bit more to chew on. Tour de Pharmacy takes sloppy punches at the sport’s governing body and anti-doping agency; stages an elaborate set piece that mocks Armstrong’s infamous interview with Oprah Winfrey; and cracks jokes about blood doping, motor doping, lying dopers, honest dopers, and dopes in bad spandex.

I found this sort of comedy considerably thornier than watching a piece of cinema that exaggerates the idiotic pretensions of the Westminster Dog show , but I would be lying if I said I didn’t laugh out loud. In particular, Kevin Bacon is delightful playing a character who runs the UCI; he at once drips with absurdity and bears some unmistakable resemblance to the idiosyncratic Hein Verbruggen, the former UCI president who died last month . Mike Tyson has a memorable cameo as a closeted cycling fan who discovered his aptitude for fighting through a bike incident. Jeff Goldblum, J.J. Abrams, and Joe Buck all take decent swipes at bicycle comedy, too.

The cycling footage is less believable than that in the Armstrong biopic The Program —which is a roundabout way of saying it has no verisimilitude whatsoever—but it is charming in its unapologetic inauthenticity. Tour de Pharmacy is going for easy laughs, and it often succeeds.

But now we arrive at the obligatory portion of this story in which the writer thinks deeply about Lance Armstrong’s role in this mess. His appearance in this movie was larger than I had expected—an extended, escalating gag in which he plays an interview source whose identity is supposed to be protected but isn’t. Armstrong simultaneously makes fun of himself—his past sins, his ego, his gullibility—and takes stabs at the establishment that banished him to the world of unsanctioned mountain bike races and podcasting studios .

For the record, I don’t hate Armstrong. Though it is presently unfashionable, I still believe he won seven Tours de France, and I also think he has a legitimate right to try to rehabilitate his legacy in most any manner he sees fit. In short, I don’t think his well-documented history as a sociopathic asshole should erase his sporting record more profoundly than the other cheating liars of his era. I don’t think he has any obligation to go away because people hate him. But when I watched Tour de Pharmacy , I couldn’t help but look through the funny props and lawyer jokes and see a man who is still angry, voicing his thinly veined discontent in a campy shtick that airs a week into the Tour. It’s both funny and sad.

In a way that evokes the so-called Armstrong era, the film’s plot revolves around a historic rendition of the Tour de France contested by a dubious crew of competitors. A familiar thicket of questions arises: Can anyone win without cheating? Are we watching just for the competition, or is the circus part of the appeal? Can a sport make its most passionate fans laugh and cry at the same time? Is a joke about a light-colored spandex cycling kit ever not funny?

The answers matter even less than knowing who wins this faux Tour de France. For people who follow pro cycling, these are 41 minutes that do not demand a deep inward gaze. It’s pointless in a good way. And in the end, I suspect most cycling fans will appreciate the humor in Tour de Pharmacy and find it almost as farcical as the real thing.

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Take A Boisterous Bike Ride With ‘Tour de Pharmacy’

Where to Stream:

• Tour De Pharmacy

Tour de Pharmacy is very dumb. And when people say, “But good dumb?” the only response is, “No, great dumb.” It’s a silly sports premise paired with a particular type of jokes, the kind that make you involuntarily laugh, that make this under 40-minute spoof very much worth the watch.

The fact that the runtime is under an hour works to everyone’s advantage, as it forces them to pack in a lot of comedy and still leaves you wanting more. Similar to 2015’s fake tennis documentary expose, 7 Days in Hell , writer Murray Miller, director Jake Szymanski, and producer/star Andy Samberg have joined forces once again to give a chuckle to those both oblivious and obsessed with sports. In fact, can we get a guarantee that this team will come together and make one of these films every calendar year, please?

The hardest part of that just might be the schedule coordinating, because the list of celebrity cameos runs longer than a CVS receipt. Tour de Pharmacy chronicles a 1982 bike race that earned its name due to the crazy amount of drugs the participants were ingesting for the competition. The film focuses on 5 dudes: Samberg’s Marty Haas, Freddie Highmore as the deceptive Adrian Baton, John Cena flexing his comedy muscles once again (to success!) and donning a blonde wig as Gustav Ditters, Daveed Diggs in a role that makes a bit more sense for him than his recent cameo in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt , and Orlando Bloom in the comedic role we never knew we always wanted to see him in. Some fun casting is employed when it comes to the older counterpart for each of these characters, who look back on all the shenanigans in interviews for the doc.

Oh, but the interview that matters most is that of a former cycler agreeing to participate only on the condition that his identity is disguised. The trailer gives a peek at this performance from Lance Armstrong, which is the strongest and most rewarding joke Tour de Pharmacy has to offer. The rest of the jokes are mostly of the dick and drug variety, with nods to race and sexuality that somehow manage to be smart yet winking throughout.

Nathan Fielder and Maya Rudolph are as comedically consistent as we can always count on them to be, and Mike Tyson, J.J. Abrams, Will Forte, and Kevin Bacon are just a few of the names that pop up for fun moments. James Marsden proves he’s an HBO company man, trading in his stern Westworld face for a goofy run here that only proves he’s pretty much good at everything.

If you show up to Tour de Pharmacy expecting anything more than a silly cycling comedy with several flashes of genitalia, you might be a wee bit disappointed. This one might not boost your IQ, but it will boost your mood, and is a ride very much worth taking.

Where to watch Tour de Pharmacy

• Andy Samberg

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Andy samberg wheels out tour de france comedy.

Tour de Pharmacy focuses on fictional events surrounding the 1982 Tour de France.

BY Daniel Sugarman

Andy Samberg is pedalling back into view with a new mockumentary, with his latest sports send-up poking fun at cycling’s doping scandals.

Tour de Pharmacy , which was created by the Jewish comedy star, focuses on fictional events surrounding the 1982 Tour de France. As well as starring Samberg himself, other famous Jewish faces on the “tour” include JJ Abrams, Jeff Goldblum, Nathan Fielder and Maya Rudolph. It also includes a “secret informant”, which the trailer reveals to be Lance Armstrong, the seven time winners of the Tour de France who was stripped of his titles after being found guilty of long-term doping offences. 

It premieres on HBO on July 8

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Tour De Pharmacy (HBO)

: A fictional Tour de France in which every competitor was doping is the setting for this comedy starring Andy Samberg and Murray Miller.

Plans start at $9.99/month.

Comedy, Sports

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Rating information, about this movie.

A fictional Tour de France in which every competitor was doping is the setting for this comedy starring Andy Samberg and Murray Miller.

Cast and Crew

Starring: Andy Samberg , Orlando Bloom , Freddie Highmore , Joe Buck , Nathan Fielder , Daveed Diggs , John Cena , James Marsden , Maya Rudolph , Danny Glover , Mike Tyson , Julia Ormond , Jeff Goldblum , Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje , Lance Armstrong , Dolph Lundgren , Eric Nenninger , Kevin Bacon , Will Forte , Chris Webber , Phylicia Rashad , J.J. Abrams , Jon Hamm

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MIA   >  Archive   >  Mandel

Ernest Mandel

De gaulle’s trip to moscow.

Source: From World Outlook , 29 July, 1966, Volume 4, No. 24, Paris and New York City Written: July, 1966 Translated: by World Outlook Transcrition & Marked-up: by David Walters for the Marxists’ Internet Archive 2009. Public Domain: Creative Commons Common Deed . You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.

[The following article has been translated from the July 9 issue of the Belgian left socialist weekly La Gauche.]

“As to alliances, we would think that they ought to be constructed ‘in three stages’: a Franco-Russian treaty procuring a first degree of security; the Anglo-Soviet pact and an agreement to be concluded between France and Great Britain constituting a second degree; the future pact of the United Nations, in which America would be a capital element, crowning the whole and serving as the ultimate recourse.” It was in these terms that Charles de Gaulle in December 1944, at the time of his first trip to Moscow, defined his concepts concerning European security, according to his Memoirs. (Volume III, p. 83, “Livre de Foche” edition.) Many things indicate that he has not changed his mind twenty-two years later. Wasn’t his second trip to Moscow designed to advance this concept?

Those with a more dour outlook will immediately object. The head of the Fifth Republic had something much more Machiavellian in mind. What he is aiming at is the predominance of France in Europe, or at least Western Europe if he is unable to extend it “from the Atlantic to the Urals.”

Since France doesn’t have the necessary economic weight, it must neutralize the drive of German industry through military superiority and diplomatic ruses. Hence it has two interests in common with the Kremlin—to block the Bundeswehr from getting nuclear arms and to break the American grip on “little Europe.” Thus the trip to Moscow was a power play against Washington and Bonn.

No doubt these analysts are right on the long-range aims of the general. But the nature of things is such that the designs of men—no Tatter how imbued with their own “grandeur”—are not at all sufficient to shape the destiny of the world. This is determined by the relationship among the big social forces. More than once in history, the diplomatic maneuvers of a power that was too weak have ended in serving the ‘big ones” despite the best intentions in the world. Didn’t this happen once again with the trip to Moscow?

Thus in the United States, the most cunning, like the servile tools of the (Johnson administration, carefully refrained from denouncing the general. “De Gaulle in Moscow served the United States despite the United States,” said some. ‘He worked for the whole West,’ others said approvingly. In Bonn, after weeks of glacial chill, the barometer of Franco-German relations again points to “fair weather.”

The truth is that de Gaulle, contrary to the groundless fears of some, did not betray his West German class brothers any more than he did his Polish class brothers at the time of his first trip.

In December 1944, Stalin dangled a “good, firm alliance,” real support against the Anglo-Saxons, in return for immediate recognition of the Lublin committee. But de Gaulle was not deceived. This would moan betraying a perhaps ‘democratic’ but certainly bourgeois Poland in behalf of a perhaps despotic but certainly noncapitalist Poland. And he did not want to take responsibility for an act contrary to “honor and honesty.” (Memoirs, Volume III, p sa.)

In June 1966, Brezhnev and Kosygin dangled an offer of just as real support against the United States, even genuine political leadership in Europe. In exchange they asked for recognition of the German Democratic Republic; that is, “of the two German states.” Be Gaulle brusquely replied that there could be no question of recognizing this “artificial construction. And with that rejoinder the serious conversation came to an end. The balance was nothing but decorations and fine talk.

Of course, the differences between Paris and Washington, between Fans and Bonn, are real in relation to the political future of our continent, its relations with the United States and the best strategy to follow to block the rise of the anti-imperialist and anticapitalist forces in the world.

Be Gaulle seeks a Europe freed largely from American supremacy. He seeks an Atlantic alliance on the basis of equality between North America and a Western Europe combined under his guidance. He favors a more supple policy, with regard to the USSR, which in his opinion should be definitively separated from China and the “extremists” among the revolutionists of the Third World, through some indispensable concessions.

He holds that it is necessary to “relax” the tensions to be able to resolve the questions in dispute, such as the reunification of Germany, while the Americans and the Germans of Bonn maintain that without this reunification no real relaxation is possible in Europe. But at bottom, they all defend a common cause—the cause of Big Capital. They all seek to hold back the enemy—socialism and the peoples of the Third World who are rising and seeking to break out of the capitalist world market. They all seek refuge under the “nuclear umbrella” of the Pentagon, without which they cannot counterbalance Soviet military power on the European continent (if anything confirms this, it is the explosion of the ridiculous French nuclear device in Polynesia which amounts to nothing in face of the power of the USSR). The means may differ, the aim is the same.

In this respect the Soviet Union represents something else again. The means are perhaps the same, but the aim is entirely different. Thus treaties on mutual consultation can be concluded—even by means of a direct telephone line!—treaties on technical cooperation, or whatever cultural and commercial exchanges are desired; the fundamental opposition between the interests of the French bourgeoisie and the Soviet leaders will by no means make it possible to form a genuine alliance in the present world context.

The Soviet leaders are aware of the weakness of the present Communist parties in Western Europe (for which they are in part responsible). They are aware of the temporary stabilization of caitalism in this part of the world (which they largely contributed to). From this they draw the conclusion that it is necessary to return to a policy that seeks to ‘exploit the interimperialist contradictions,” as before the second world war. They commit an error in believing that de Gaulle is ready to follow them into a têtei-tête, when he seeks in reality only to increase his power and prestige within the Atlantic Alliance

The French Communist leaders would obviously make a still greater error in concluding that the time has come for an ‘agonizing revision” of their political orientation in France, as in 1935 or 1944.

It is true that the policy of the USSR places them before a cruel dilemma; they no longer know if they should applaud or complain when the Soviet crowds cheer the person who remains, until proved otherwise, the fiercest and most dangerous class enemy of the French workers. If they oppose him, they are tempted to make an alliance with de Gaulle’s pro-American adversaries like Nollet and Nitterrand—and then the capitals of Eastern Europe are not very contented. And if they approve, what remains of their role as an opposition in France? There remains the socialist perspective which stands in complete opposition to the politics of de Gaulle; but the leaders of the French Communist party do not think this is any more “realistic’ than do the Social Democratic leaders of the SF10, or even the technocratic ideologists of neocapitalism.

That will the practical results of the trip amount to? The American Newsweek summarized the situation as follows: “At least he will have succeeded in engaging the Russians in a new diplomatic dialogue with the West.” That puts it in a nutshell. At a time when the intensification of the American aggression against the Vietnamese people makes a public dialogue between Moscow and Washington more difficult, de Gaulle is playing, objectively, the role of go-between for the Atlantic Alliance as a whole Thanks to him, the head of one of the capitalist states in this alliance has been acclaimed by crowds in the Soviet Union. For the first time in many years they have been shown a face of capitalism which their own leaders now say is benevolent, attractive, peaceful, full of good intentions toward the peoples of the world.

Pravda in connection with this trip, talks about an ‘irreversible process.” Let them beware of certain processes, which while still reversible, bode nothing good for the USSR. By attending mass in Leningrad, de Gaulle, like a good politician, was already prepa:ing for his coming trip to Poland. Rumania, ceaselessly increasing its trade with the West, already told the Russians in Bucharest that it would like to see the Warsaw pact modified just as de Gaulle wants to modify NATO. Decidely, if things are in movement, thanks not a little to the general, not everything is stirring in favor of socialism and not everything is stirring against the interests of American imperialism.

Back to the Ernest Mandel Internet Archive

Last updated on 7 February 2009

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