Revisiting Bryan Fogel and his real-life thriller ‘Icarus’

From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is the business. We moved production offices three times. We took everything that we were doing offline, and we're doing all of our editing between hard drives. And I began to understand more and more how serious this was, and essentially where it went to, that there wasn't much separation between Gregory and Putin. Ryan Fogel's plan was to make a documentary about pervasive doping and cycling by becoming a human guinea pig to see whether he could dope and evade detection. He recruited chemist Gregory Rodchenkoff in Moscow to guide him, and then the plot thickened. Rodchenkoff was revealed as the architect of Russia's massive state run doping program. When that became public, Rodchenkoff feared he was not safe in Russia, apparently with good reason. Fogel helped him flee, and then he helped Rodchenkoff blow the whistle on Russia. Thanks to Rodchenkoff's disclosures, Russia was banned from the upcoming Winter Olympics. Today, we're revisiting our conversation with Fogel about his film Iparus, now shortlisted for an Oscar nomination. But first on the news banter, the fight to make me too more than just a moment. Stick around, it's the business from KCRW. I'm joined by my colleague and banter, Matt Bellany, of the Hollywood Reporter. Hello, Matt. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you. There's so much going on. I have this desire to talk about our colleague, Michael Wolf's book, because it's just devoured the news. Have you heard about a book? I heard about a book. And it is excerpted in several places, but also in the Hollywood Reporter. But that is not our bellywick right now. We're going to talk about show business, because there's a lot happening in Hollywood too, notably, and it does somehow have something to do with the Donald Trump of it all. The women of Hollywood have really made strides towards organizing. There's been a big desire on the part of a lot of people, not just women, but civilized men, to see to it that this me too moment doesn't pass with nothing gained. And so there is some organization underway, and some of it seems to have real teeth. And I'm going to leave it to you right now to lay it out, because it's complicated, and you have it right in your head. OK, so here's what's going on. There is this overall moniker called Time's Up, which is the label that people are using to describe the efforts underway in multiple fronts to combat sexual harassment in the industry. And the first prong of that, so to speak, is what's being called the Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, which sounds very boring, but this one I think has a lot of teeth, because it's organized by Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm, and it's chaired by Anita Hill. And this is the one where executives across the industry, the top-top-level executives from Bob Eiger, Disney, to Ted Sarandas and Netflix, Arya Manual, they all got together, and they agreed to support this effort to come up with some kind of a framework of guidelines that can be enforced, that can prevent harassment, both companies and studios, and on movie sets, and so forth. Yeah, and I will just note that Kathy Kennedy exercised some woman power by commanding all of them to show up in person, which is something. Of course, they never want to do that, but she made them do it. She's one of the few people who could do that, I think. And the other thing, of course, that some people have noted is that with the agency's present and participating in certain executives where people look a bit of scant like what's in your cupboard, they had no choice, though. They had to come and participate in this with kind of an or else thing. Yeah. So the second prong of this is what's being called the Times Up Legal Defense Fund, and that's the element that's really being pushed by the actresses, and you've seen a lot of them on social media, and on these other places saying, you know, Times Up, we are going to push the change. Right. And that is a $14 million to start legal defense fund. They're soliciting more donations to defend and push for the rights of women across industries, not just entertainment. That's what makes it different. Michelle Obama's former chief of staff, Tina Chen, is involved, she's an attorney, Roberta Kaplan, and other attorneys is involved in that one. And that is the talent-oriented effort to combat harassment. And then the third element is this 50/50 by 2020 initiative. And that is something that's been spearheaded by Shonda Rhymes, the showrunner. And the effort there is to get companies committed to having gender parity by the end of 2020. That has had so far a little less success, getting companies to sign on to that. I think some are reluctant to make some kind of a broad commitment like that. But CAA and vice media and ICM partners where Shonda Rhymes is represented, they are committing to that pledge. - Yeah, I sort of feel like some of those have special reasons to want to be on board, you know? We've just seen recent numbers come up again with very little progress. So there's a lot of work to be done. And I will say that's an ambitious thing that with the numbers as bad as they are to try to get to 50/50 by 2020. But I think that's essential. If this is gonna be more than a passing moment and be a lasting change in this industry, women at the top is what's gonna change the culture where a lot of institutions here are frat houses, basically with rich, powerful guys doing whatever. That needs to change. People need to grow up and start acting like professionals. And I think unless women get into power as a matter of routine and not so exceptionally, it won't change. - Well, these are the most powerful women in Hollywood trying to push exactly for that. Right, now let me just turn to another big pending story. You know, the television critics are gathered again for the winter presentation. And that meant that Gary Newman and Dana Walden who run Fox, both the Fox TV studio and the broadcast network had to appear before a room full of critics. This is routine executives present generally. So I'm trying to skip it and talk about what was going on. And as they said, they had to talk about, this is like the inevitable joke, the mouse in the room, which is, of course, this pending deal with Disney. And it's just, it sort of gives you a sense. They've worked very, very hard to say, it's business is usual. It's gonna be fine. We're just, we're really working. It's gonna, nothing's gonna change at this point. We're just acting like nothing's gonna change. 12 to 18 months before this merger closes. And they have to somehow convince talent and get people to bring deals to them that, you know, when they don't even know if they're gonna be work, where they're gonna be working, I should say, whether it's Disney, Fox or neither. - Yeah, I mean, Dana and Gary at Fox are put in the most awkward situation of any executive in this merger, because they run the Fox network, which is staying with the Murdoch's, as part of this new Fox that will include Fox News and Sports and other things. And they also run the 20th TV studio, which is going with Disney. So they are like perched on this widening chasm that is just going to pull them apart. And they are eventually going to leave one of those companies. So for them to say business is usual, obviously it is not business as usual. But the purpose of this is to telegraph to talent that they are going to be in their corner. And they're gonna still fight and try to get the best shows. And that's the messaging right now. And we saw Ryan Murphy for one, who's probably the most important showrunner in the Fox Fold. He did American Crime Story. He has a new show, 911. - Horror Story. - Yeah, I mean, he's the most powerful guy in the 20th TV stable. He says he's taking a wait and see approach to the Disney deal and seeing what they can offer and what essentially, how can you make me happy? - So in terms of the Fox network, there's been speculation that that would be primarily news and sports. Dana Walden and Gary Newman were sort of trying to say, we're gonna go ahead as if it's not going to be. They said that Bob Eiger doesn't wanna disnify Fox stuff, which would also apply to the Fox TV studio and effects I presume. But basically, you know, it means nothing right now because people always say soothing words when an merger is looming and because they don't want a total brain drain, but then they do what they want. - Yeah, and I don't know. There's a lot of questions about what's gonna happen, particularly because the FX network is so powerful and influential in a particular area of premium television that I imagine they're going to want to keep the programming team that has really made that into a powerhouse, which includes John Landgraph who's the executive there, but it also includes 20th television, which has provided a lot of shows to the FX network. So that team there at 20th, Dana and Gary and their people there at 20th, they're pretty valuable to Disney, in my opinion. And I just, I think that Disney's gonna try to keep them happy to say, okay, maybe you're losing the FOX network, but what is there in the Disney stable that we can do to make you happy? - And I'm gonna take the other side of that proposition. I think Dana Walden is probably going to look for a job elsewhere. I don't know if Gary will do the same, but I think they'll be split up and I don't think I'm guessing, I'll lay my bet now for whenever this closes, I don't think either one of them will really be part of that Disney FOX asset combo. - And then if that's true though, the question then becomes, what talent will follow them? Because the relationship between Ryan Murphy and Dana Walden is very strong. And she has other relationships, Steve Levitan, a co-creator of Modern Family. These people have had their careers built by Dana and Gary, and I'm sure they'll be loyal. - We will see what happens, thank you Matt. - Thank you. - That's Matt Bellany, Editorial Director of the Hollywood Reporter. Today we're reaching out to you. visiting our conversation with Brian Fogel, director of the documentary Icarus, which premiered on Netflix last August. The film is now one of 15 on the Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary. When Fogel set out to make Icarus, he intended to be its subject. Fogel is an amateur cyclist who decided to undergo a doping regimen to see if he could improve his performance in races all while avoiding detection. For help in this quest, he found a willing accomplice in Dr. Gregory Rudchenkoff, the chemist who ran Russia's largest anti-doping laboratory. Supposedly, his job was to make sure that Russian athletes didn't dope. Fogel and Rudchenkoff connected over Skype. - But what is your ultimate purpose? You would like to beat a doping test? You would like to start your formal program? - Yes. - Then give sample and prove negative. - Yes. - Ha, ha, ha. - Things soon became much more serious and scary than either Fogel or Rudchenkoff had anticipated. After Fogel's experiment was well underway, it was revealed in the media that Rudchenkoff was actually the architect of Russia's massive Olympic doping program. Once exposed, Rudchenkoff had to flee Russia. Fogel helped him escape, almost certainly saving his life. Throughout all of this, the camera kept rolling. As it did when Fogel interrogated Rudchenkoff once they were faced to face. - Does Russia have a systematic statewide doping system in place to cheat the Olympics? - Yes. - Were you the mastermind of a statewide system that cheated the Olympics? - Of course. - Yes. - Was Putin aware of the existence of a Russian doping system? - Yes. Evere of my name. - Long before Fogel was entangled in this terrifying story, he was an aspiring comedian, hoping to make it as a feature filmmaker. He directed a movie called Utopia, but it was not a box office success. So I found myself starting over again. And in starting over, I went back to cycling because riding my bike was something that I had done my whole life. I started racing when I was 13 years old and it had been my therapy throughout my life. And it was around the same time that all the Lance Armstrong allegations were getting really, really heated. And in January 2013, he comes out on Oprah and he confesses that he had been doping his whole career. But underneath that Armstrong story, to me was a bigger story. And that bigger story was, even though he had confessed, this guy to this day had still passed 500 anti-doping controls clean. He has never been caught. - They turned people in that way, they got it. - Exactly. It was like catching up the problem. - No, your blood was not good. It was like, somebody told us what you did. - You got it. And I'm going, wait, wait, wait. This appears to be a fraud. And if the most tested athlete on planet Earth forget about cycling, have been able to evade positive detection for 13, 14 years, what did this mean for all of sport? - Well, so let me ask you. So you then decide you're going to explore this world. Are you more interested in what the physical effect of doping will be on you as a cyclist or are you more interested in figuring out if you can beat the test or is it just both? - It was really both. And I think that probably anyone who has been a competitive athlete and didn't turn professional, I think there's always been that curiosity in the back of your mind when you're reading all the stuff of what do these drugs do? - I have the good shoes, maybe I would be waiting this thing. - Exactly. If I had taken this stuff, could have I been a professional athlete, but then aside from personal curiosity, I was really, really interested to see if what land to done could still be done, but also what this meant for all of sport and investigating this system behind professional sports. - And when you say investigating the system, you're talking like with a small eye, not the giant investigating the system that was to ensue, but let's not get ahead. I'm curious when you set out to do this. How has that put together? Who finances that? - I came up with a pitch and the plan was essentially this two year plan. I was going to go do this race in Europe clean and then I was going to go back the next year dope and then I was going to try to evade detection and along that route, I was going to be advised by scientists which in my initial treatment, you know, the guys who I thought were going to help me ended up changing and that I was going to show whether or not the anti-doping system was working, whether or not I was caught and then behind that, I was also going to be interviewing athletes and journalists on the anti-doping system in sports. So based on that, this kind of supersized me journey into doping in sports, I was able to raise a first chunk of money, this first basically $350,000. - From? - From a guy who had been a friend and a businessman and wanted to help me. And he essentially invested for me to get started on this. And at the end of this first year, I put together what is like this 25 minute short film because I didn't have any more money to continue it. Basically spent that money in shooting the entire first year and traveling and doing this race. Gregory was in it, but you know, I-- - You had already found Gregory. - Yes. And there were other scientists in it, there were other interviews in it. - So let me just try to get the timeline in my head a little 'cause the spotlight really starts to turn to Gregory if I've got it right, with this German article. - Right. - Where does that in relation to your connection with Gregory? I mean, were you in, had you started talking with him already? - Yes. - So you've done your first race and you were getting ready to start doing those shots. And you know that the spotlight is turning towards Gregory or has turned. - Well, it was actually a slow process. You know, in December 2014, after I had already been filming basically since the prior April, I had met Gregory, we had spoke. This German documentary breaks a legend that there's a state-sponsored program in Russia. It's alleging that Gregory is essentially overseeing this program. And at the same time, I'm beginning to dope. And Gregory is working with me. And I make this decision that I had one or two choices at that point, choice one is I turn into investigative journalist and I lose Gregory. Choice two was I had this friendship. He was helping me already on what I thought was going to be a very interesting film. And he's this incredible personality. And he's willing to help me do this. And so I said, hey, I don't have control of where this investigation's gonna go. But what I do have control over is my journey and the film that I'm making. So I decided that I would just continue with that plan. And so the entire year that Gregory is under investigation and they're investigating the lab, he's also advising me how to dope, he comes to Los Angeles and helps me smuggle my urine back to Moscow. And he's doing all of this on camera. Which is, it's unbelievable. I mean, did you sort of, you didn't just find somebody, it's you sort of indicate in the film, it's not like there are scientists growing on trees who are just dying to help you dope and be dope on camera. - And see that are running a water lab over old anti-doping agency lab. - Did you have any idea going into it that Gregory could be literally in the crosshairs? I mean, did it ever occur to you at the beginning or no? - The whole thing was so surreal. It was surreal that this guy was helping me and he shouldn't have been helping me. But this is the guy running the third largest anti-doping lab who's overseeing all the testing for Sochi. And he's also in my kitchen at my dining room table, coding my urine samples to smuggle back to Moscow. I mean, all of this was so illogical in a, you know, this shouldn't be happening point of view. But I could have never imagined. I mean, in a million years that essentially he was and is Snowden of Russia. And he not only was deeply involved in this program for, you know, the last 12 years of it was the mastermind of this program was truly the center, the epicenter of this program. And not only that, he had the evidence. He had been keeping the evidence. - Well, it made me wonder whether he's obviously brilliant, whether he knew when you reached out at that moment. Like the sands are running through the hour glass. And if maybe this gets me out of here somehow. - You know what, I've asked Gregory that. I haven't been able to speak to him for over a year now since he's been in protective custody. But during the making of this and everything, I'd constantly ask him that. And he would say to me, he's like, look, first of all, I just thought what you were doing was interesting and sounded fun to me. Second of all, we really developed a trust. And I said to him at the time and I meant it. And I said, look, anything that we do, whatever we film, at the end of a day, I'm gonna show you this movie. And if it jeopardizes you or your career, then you and I will figure this out. And I'm not gonna put out anything to harm you. And so he then proceeded to operate in unimaginable good faith and allowed me to capture on camera a million things that I really should. shouldn't have captured. And in return, when the going got rough for him, and he was in jeopardy of his life, I felt that at that point it was about a friendship. And I felt this credible moral and ethical obligation to help him as a friend because he had helped me. And that was what I did. Okay. So you had your 25 minute thing back, as you said, to seek more funding to keep this alive. I don't know if that worked. It did. A company called Impact Partners, Dan Kogan, who's an exceptional documentary producer. It made its way to him. And Dan called me a few days later, and he said, "Look, I love what you're doing. What do you need? What do you need to finish this film?" And at the time, the amount of money that I needed to finish the film actually would turn out to be a small fraction of the money that I would ultimately need to finish the film. But Dan Kogan and his group of investors came on board the project, and then when the film took a turn, and we were suddenly playing with life and death, and these incredible high stakes, these people didn't run away. They basically backed up the truck, and these guys kept the ball rolling. Coming up after a short break, director Brian Fogel tells us about fearing for his own safety while making Icarus and why he chose Netflix to distribute his film. You're listening to the business from KCRW. This is the business and I'm Kim Masters. Today, we're revisiting our conversation with director Brian Fogel. His documentary Icarus is available on Netflix. The film started as a kind of supersize me for sports, in which Fogel, an amateur cyclist, planned to test out doping strategies on himself. But Icarus morphed into a real life thriller. In the midst of Fogel's experiment, it was revealed in press reports that his advisor on his regiment was in fact the architect of Russia's massive doping program. At that point, the chemist Gregory Ruchenkoff feared for his life. He had seen a seemingly healthy 52-year-old colleague in running the Russian program die, supposedly from a heart attack. Fogel helped Ruchenko fill Russia and together, they went to the New York Times. In 2016, the paper published an in-depth report on the chemist and the Russian doping program. Meanwhile, Fogel kept his camera rolling. A few months after we talked to Fogel, the International Olympic Committee banned Russia from February's winter games. Fogel returned to talk to the host of KCRW's press play Madeline Brand. She asked him if he thought Icarus was the reason for the ban. In a very humble way, I would say 100 percent. Everything that has fallen is a result of Icarus and had this journey not started and had the film not been made. There is not even a 1 percent probability that Russia would be banned from the Olympics. Ruchenkoff meanwhile continues to live in the US under federal protection. Since Icarus was released, Putin has issued a warrant for Ruchenkoff's arrest and alleged that the United States has been drugging the chemist. As long ago as last summer, Fogel told us he could feel things heating up as he was making the film. Did you think you were in danger? Yes. We took everything that we were doing offline and we're doing all of our editing between hard drives. And as I began to understand more and more how serious this was and essentially where it went to, that there wasn't much separation between Gregor and Putin. And so once we saw this and understood this, it was very, very tense. While we were continuing to film, we were in a daily crisis management situation. And it was so many sleepless nights and so many phone calls with Dan of how do we protect Gregory? How do we protect the film? How do we protect this evidence? How do we bring this story forward? What do we do? What do we do? And that was very, very, very stressful and I was looking over my back the whole time. And so we had a decision and the decision was, okay, one, do we want all the athletes of the world who are going to the Rio Olympic Games to have this information? Do we want the world to have this information? And do we want to uphold Gregory because he had risked his life? He had left his family. He was never going back to Russia ever again. And he was here in America to tell his story. And what were we going to do with that? And the decision at that point was incredibly clear, which was we had to go to the New York Times. I mean, I appreciate all of your reasons. And I think they're very well-founded for going to the Times. I wondered if you had some interjournalists saying, but this is my scoop. Oh, I did. I mean, I really did. And we had this idea that we were going to break this in the film. But ultimately, I realized that that was not what I was there to do. And it sounds almost spiritual. Yeah. Because it was more important that this story come forward. And had we tried to release this in a film, it would be attacked. Russia and everybody else would go, Oh, this is bull. This is one man story. How are you going to prove it? And the only way that it could be proved was through another investigation, which we didn't have the power to do so that that New York Times piece set off then the next investigation. And ultimately, everything that Gregory had brought forward was proven beyond a reasonable doubt. So, yes, you can still have denials, but there's all sorts of deniers in this world. It doesn't make it true. So when you take the film to Sundance, you know, it's $5 million sale. So I don't know if that helps to defray or you covers or but you know, I think on the outside, everybody's going, Oh my God, you just got rich. And I'm going, Oh my God, you have no idea how much money this movie costs to make because there were spectacular expenses that really had nothing to do with a regular making of a film. But the decision to go with Netflix outside of my own needs as a filmmaker, to always want your film in a cinema, but on a social level, I couldn't think of no better company than Netflix. And that's why we made that decision. And then Sundance gets hacked. What are the odds? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, there were a lot of suspicion that it was because of Icarus. I don't know. I think if you would ask most people on the planet right now, are you aware of the Russian doping scandal? They'd say, yeah, I heard something about it. But I think that the power of cinema is when you see something like when you see a film like Blackfish and all of a sudden understands how SeaWorld was treating their animals. And so when this film comes out, I think the cinematic journey and here is the undeniable truth and evidence. No matter what you want to say, no matter what Russia wants to say, I think we haven't and I haven't seen the ramifications of that, the fallout of that or what this actually means yet. Because I think there are going to have to be things that are going to change and hopefully they change as a result of this film. Brian Fogel is the director of the documentary Icarus now available on Netflix. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here and I hope a lot of people will see the film and also in light of current events if there's any question as to whether or not our election was hacked or the reach of what a global superpower can do to assert itself. I think that this film answers a lot of those questions. And that's the business, Caitlin Parker produced and edited today's program with production assistance from Ray Gwarna. You can subscribe to the business as well as other great KCRW podcasts at KCRW.com/podcasts. I'm Kim Masters. We'll see you next week on The Business.