Christopher John "Topher" Grace ( TOH-fər; born July 12, 1978), is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Eric Forman in the sitcom That '70s Show (1998–2005) and Eddie Brock / Venom in the film Spider-Man 3 (2007). He has also starred in the films Traffic (2000), Mona Lisa Smile (2003), p.s. (2004), Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004), In Good Company (2004), Valentine's Day (2010), and Predators (2010).
Grace also played the lead role in the ABC comedy series Home Economics (2021–2023) and has had supporting roles in films such as Interstellar (2014), BlacKkKlansman (2018), and Heretic (2024).
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Early life
Christopher John Grace was born in New York City on July 12, 1978. His mother, Pat, was the assistant to New Canaan Country School's headmaster; his father, John Grace, was a Madison Avenue executive. He has a sister named Jenny. His mother is of Irish descent, whilst his paternal grandmother came from a German-Jewish family with links to the Polish town of Kępno. Grace was raised an Episcopalian.
He grew up in Darien, Connecticut, where he became friends with Kate Bosworth in middle school and was babysat by Chloë Sevigny, who later appeared with him in high school plays.
Career
Grace was cast as Eric Forman on Fox's That '70s Show, which debuted in 1998. He played the role regularly until the show's 7th season, when his character was written out and replaced with a new character named Randy Pearson (Josh Meyers). Grace made a brief guest appearance in the final episode. Reflecting on his experience working on the show in 2018, Grace described it as being "like a boot camp [...] for acting." He explained: "There's a filmic element, so you learn that. There's a live audience, so there's kind of a theater element. And when you suck, which you do — especially, like me, if you've never acted before — you get back up next week, do another show. And I think everyone on that show would tell you that over four or five years, we got good."
Grace played a prep school student who introduces his girlfriend to freebasing in director Steven Soderbergh's 2000 film Traffic, as well as having uncredited cameos as himself in Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven and its 2004 sequel, Ocean's Twelve. "The joke is that you're supposed to play the worst version of yourself and I don't think too many people are comfortable with that. I never thought for a second that people were really going to think that's what I was like. I think that people will know that I was faking it in those movies", he told Flaunt magazine in 2007.
He planned to cameo in Ocean's Thirteen. However, due to his role in Spider-Man 3, he had to abandon these plans. As Grace said, "I was doing reshoots on Spider-Man 3. I was bummed. I actually talked to Steven Soderbergh about that and we had a thing and then I couldn't do it." He appeared in director Mike Newell's 2003 film Mona Lisa Smile.
In 2004, Grace played the leading roles in Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! and In Good Company. That same year, he starred in P.S., which received only a limited theatrical release. Grace won the National Board of Review's 2004 award for Breakthrough Performance Actor for his work in In Good Company and P.S.
On January 15, 2005, Grace hosted Saturday Night Live.
In 2007, Grace portrayed Eddie Brock/Venom in Spider-Man 3, directed by Sam Raimi. Grace himself was a fan of the comics and read the Venom stories as a child. In 2009, Grace became the subject of a recurring column on the entertainment/pop culture site Videogum, entitled "What's Up With Topher Grace?"
Other ventures
Grace has long held an interest in making fan edits of popular films, particularly those involving Star Wars. He has stated that this has become a source of relaxation for him. His edits were shared on his now-defunct pop-culture website Cereal Prize.
In 2012, he edited the Star Wars prequel trilogy into one 85-minute film, titled Star Wars: Episode III.5: The Editor Strikes Back and showed it to select audiences. The edit utilized original footage, music from The Clone Wars animated series, and a portion from Anthony Daniels' audiobook recordings.
In 2014, he created a cut of Boogie Nights that served as a reconstruction of the character Brock Landers' fake movie Angels Live in My Town.
In 2018, he created his own edit of The Hobbit, stating that "I think that maybe The Hobbit should've been one movie, and many people would agree. Money drives a lot of those franchises. It's better when the art leads." He specifically edited this as a way to relax while portraying David Duke in Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman.
In 2019, Grace and editor Jeff Yorkes started a Twitter account for "Lou's Cafe", the pseudonym by which the two credit their work. The name comes from the diner featured in the film Back to the Future. Later that year, he and Yorkes were commissioned by Pixar to edit a retrospective for Toy Story 4, which was titled "Toy Story 4 Ever" and released on Pixar's YouTube account.
Personal life
Grace started dating actress Ashley Hinshaw in January 2014. They were engaged in January 2015 and married near Santa Barbara, California, on May 29, 2016. They have three children.
Grace is a supporter of the microfinance organization FINCA International.
Filmography
Music videos
In the Street (1999) by Cheap Trick, as Eric Forman
Don't You Want Me Baby (2011) from Atomic Tom, as Himself
Video games
Spider-Man 3 (2007), as Eddie Brock / Venom
Stage
Lonely, I'm Not (2012), as Porter, at Second Stage Theatre