As a Villain, Topher Grace Plays It Cool

As a young man at a New England middle school, Christopher Grace read lots of Spider-Man comics, doodled on algebra notebooks and dreamed big.

He wanted one thing for his life: to become a professional tennis player.

Two sprained ankles into a varsity career, that plan was derailed.

Poor dude. He had to grow up to become a comic book character in a major summer blockbuster instead.

If you're looking to make a case for the everything-happens-for-a-reason line of thinking, you could do much worse than using Topher Grace as Exhibit A.

That second sprained ankle led to a full season on the bench, which led to an on-a-whim tryout for a high school production of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." He got the lead, of course, and the parents of another cast member happened to be Hollywood producers who asked if they could get in touch the next year when he started as a freshman at the University of Southern California -- "I was like, 'Yeah, babe, have your people call my people. We'll have lunch,' " Grace says -- and they did get in touch.

Then they asked him to try out for a little series being developed. It was called "That '70s Show."

So if, even 10 years later, Grace maintains a little "I can't believe this is happening to me" wonderment -- well, it doesn't come off as totally fake.

"You know in Universal Studios where they're like, ' We'll put you inside the movies'? I was like, 'Wow, it's really happening for me right now. I'm really in there,' " he gushes.

And, of course, he was really in there, on the set of "Spider-Man 3" (see review on Page 38), where every day for three months he walked to work, sat in a makeup chair and became one of Peter Parker's latest nemeses, Venom.

Really? Sweet, scrawny Eric Forman as a nemesis? Named Venom?

Yeah, Grace had pretty much the same thought when the movie's producers called him in to discuss the idea. The Venom he remembered from those junior high comic book days was a big man, in his 40s -- gruff and intimidating.