| By Lisa Rosen You could call him America's boy sweetheart. He was the sweet, funny, small-town kid in the TV hit "That ‘70s Show" and the film Win a Date with Tad Hamilton. He even stayed appealing through In Good Company as a very junior executive bossing Dennis Quaid around, and in P.S. as Laura Linney's young lover. But now he's grown up and he's gone bad. Real bad. Playing the part of Eddie Brock/Venom in Spider-Man 3, written by Alvin Sargent and directed by Sam Raimi, Grace reveled in the part of a wild villain. His inner geek got a good workout, too. Moving Pictures Magazine: Tell me about Eddie Brock/Venom.
Topher Grace: Eddie Brock is very similar to Peter when he starts off. Actually, his life is in a little bit better shape than Peter's. He's a reporter at the Bugle as well, he uses a little more product in his hair, he has better outfits, they both flirt with the same girls and he's a better flirt. The movie's about a lot of things, but in terms of Eddie, it's kind of a case study where, if somebody got the same powers that Peter got in the first movie but didn't have as great a core, what would happen? Sam said, "When Eddie gets his powers, his motto is like, ‘With great power comes great fun.'" MPM: Did it blow you away to be up for a role in the movie?
Grace: I was a huge fan - not just of Spider-Man but of Todd McFarlane, who was the illustrator when I was 12, 13, at the time of the origin of Venom. So not only did I love Spider-Man and Peter Parker, but on top of it, I was there for the birth of that character. So I had this meeting at Sony, and all of a sudden Sam Raimi's in the room, and then [producer] Laura Ziskin's in the room, and [producer] Avi Arad, and they're starting to tell me the plot of Spider-Man 3, and I'm thinking, "Where is this going?" And then when they told me they wanted me to play Venom, I had to bite my tongue so I had some negotiating power. We went to Comic-Con and they had a trailer there that I hadn't seen, and I was geeking out about it backstage. I mean, that would be a cool moment in my life if I weren't on the screen. And it's me! It's blowing my mind. It's some of the coolest stuff I've ever seen in film, and I'm a real cinephile. MPM: Is this your first fantasy character, as well as your first villain?Grace: Well, I got to make screen love to Laura Linney in P.S., so that might have been my first fantasy role. But it's my first villain, and that was a whole experience unto itself. When you're playing a protagonist, you kind of hear a bell when you're going into a film that's unrealistic - you have a real responsibility to the audience to keep it real. But playing a half-jerk, half-psycho-killer from outer space, there are no rules - I'm not hearing that bell. You can do whatever you want, and it is fun. MPM: How do you prepare for the role?
Grace: I'd have to say it wasn't hard to prepare, being at a place in my career where I felt like I was confident enough to make some really strong choices. You've got to be kind of confident to do crazy things. The good news is that Sam Raimi is going to take care of you. I know what he's done with these other kids, and I've been a fan of other films he's done. This is not news in Hollywood, but he's the nicest genius you'll ever meet. So it was very easy to trust that he would not let me look bad on screen. MPM: Did you feel any pressure to take up the villain mantle in one of the biggest franchises in history?
Grace: I felt some pressure that I wouldn't be able to kick as much ass as necessary, but I guarantee you I did. I don't mean it in a metaphoric way; I kicked some ass. I don't want to give anything away, but I didn't pull any punches. What's great about it - Avi Arad said there are no bad guys in Marvel. I was like, what are you talking about? He said, "Unlike whatever other comic book companies, everyone has a reason for why they do what they do." And that's why I think people respect the drama in these movies, because everyone has a motive, though hopefully not the paths you or I would take. And in this movie - I think this is the first villain that's really integral to the main characters, in terms of why he's mad. It's not that Spider-Man is getting in his way. Spider-Man and, more specifically, Peter Parker is his problem. MPM: Are you in cahoots with Thomas Haden Church's character?
Grace: I can't really talk about how that works, but just personally, he and I come from the sitcom world, and we were both kind of high-fiving each other on the set. MPM: What do you think the Spider-Man movies offer the film landscape? What is it giving audiences with each installment?
Grace: Most sequels are rehashes of the first movie, where you have to negate the plot of the first movie in order to see the second one, which means you have to dumb down the characters because they didn't really learn what they learned in the first movie. There are a couple of sequels that have been amazing and make me want to watch sequels. I remember Star Wars was one where I thought, "Oh my god, there's so much new information in the second one, and the third, too. It keeps opening up as it goes along." And I think when movies work like that, the way Spider-Man does, it's kind of operatic the way each movie keeps opening up the story and more characters intertwine with each other. If all sequels were like that, I'd love to see them, because it's the ultimate escapism. It's not one movie, it's a whole world. |
