From a fast start in Hollywood to villainous turns to a self-described nerdy hobby, how else
has Topher Grace changed over the decades? Here is the transformation of Topher Grace from 16 to 43.
Topher Grace attended school in Darien, Connecticut,
a town described by USA Today as being, quote, "quite the celebrity breeding ground."
The school churned out notable stars like Grace's "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!" co-star
Kate Bosworth, as well as perennial it-girl Chloë Sevigny — his babysitter growing up. His family,
meanwhile, wasn't very showbiz at all: Speaking to New York Magazine, Grace confirmed that growing up
with parents who had normal, everyday jobs infused him with a strong and realistic work ethic.
This is perhaps why, when faced with a sporting injury at school, he chose not to simply rest up
but to casually stride into a whole new challenge: Acting. As he explained to OZY [“ozzy”] -
"I was on the varsity tennis team and I had this injury.
I thought, 'Yeah, I'm going to do the [school] play.'"
Grace later attended a boarding school in New Hampshire, and as the actor told OZY,
a girl in stagecraft for the school productions he starred in
had parents who were, quote, "big-time Hollywood producers."
Clearly, he made an impression on them, as they cast him in their new project, "That '70s Show"
Luckily, Grace felt right at home among the rest of the similarly inexperienced young cast,
as Grace told Deadline -
"That was literally my first audition. Now that I have a bunch of years on me,
I can see how brave it was for them to choose these kids who had zero experience."
In 1998, the show premiered, and it became an instant TV hit, one that helped Topher
become confident in his abilities. Speaking to Slate, he confessed that he appreciated
getting to hone his acting chops on a sitcom early in his career, saying -
"When you stink — which I did,
frequently at the beginning — you get to come back the next week and get better,"
After proving his comedic mettle with "That '70s Show," Topher Grace was ready
to try out his newly improved acting skills in the big leagues. In 2000,
the actor scored a role in Steven Soderbergh's Oscar-winning drugs drama
"Traffic." It was a huge departure for the actor, who told Deadline
that he subsequently learned a great lesson from working with the indie film legend, explaining -
"Sometimes filmmaking is artifice and sometimes it's reality, and there's no wrong way to do it."
In 2001, those lines certainly blurred when Grace enjoyed a standout cameo in "Ocean's Eleven."
The role demanded that the star depict a bratty, idiotic version of himself learning poker from
Brad Pitt — something that he, the notably low-key and modest star, appeared to do with relish.
"What the hell, it's only pocket change right?"
"How you bet is your business, you wanna make 'em think you're betting for a reason."
"Yeah thanks man… Right."
Luckily, many in the industry saw potential in Grace's underplayed star quality.
Between 2003 and 2004, he scored roles in fairly big mainstream fare including "Mona
Lisa Smile," and "In Good Company." Speaking about the latter, director Paul Weitz told
Entertainment Weekly what was attractive about Grace to him during casting, saying -
"He has the capacity to be not just an Everyman, but an Everyman with some darkness to him."
It gave Grace an odd appeal: he was charming enough for the mainstream,
but he was also something of an outlier. In reprising his meta-role as a version of himself
in "Ocean's Twelve," his dark, outlier demeanor gave him even more freedom to poke fun at himself.
Six years into his career, he was confident enough to take potshots at himself,
but he was apparently still in his salad days. For instance, while referencing dance
lessons he took with Julia Roberts, he told Deadline of his "Mona Lisa Smile" co-star -
"Seeing how she handled herself was a lesson for an idiot like me who kept stepping on her feet."
Having found critical success and personal fulfillment from working in cinema,
Topher Grace decided to leave "That '70s Show" in 2005.
Speaking to IndieWire in 2018, Grace recollected that he told his agents -
"I don't want to do anything but work with auteurs"
It was a statement that apparently triggered colossal money alarms for
those responsible for cutting the deals. However, his sitcom role was lucrative,
and it gave him newfound freedom as he reasoned -
"I didn't care [about the size of the role or the salary], It's what I wanted to do with my life."
In an interview with GQ, the actor likened his growth on
"That '70s Show" to the experience of the lead actor of the movie "Boyhood,"
who was filmed maturing over the course of 12 years, saying -
"I was 19 to 26 or something. That was a very long time [...] no one gives sitcoms
this kind of credit, but they span a long period of people's lives."
Sure his agents were worried, but they needn't have been:
Topher Grace's decision to switch gears in his career, though drastic,
paid off. The star landed the coveted role of Venom in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man 3."
"Ooh my spider sense is tingling - if you know what I'm talking about."
His depiction may not have been popular, but the role allowed Grace to flex his capacity
to tap into both the light and the dark sides of his characters. Speaking to Collider about
getting into the right mindset for a complex character like this, he explained how, quote,
"happiness, sadness, being mean and being nice" all exist on the same level, adding -
"My goal in my career is to […] find characters that have that kind of balance too."
Considering he followed up the Venom role with performances in the horror-action flick
"Predators" as a serial killer, and in the ensemble rom-com "Valentine's
Day," his career certainly maintains that balance.
Now in his 30s, Topher Grace appeared comfortable with his artistic voice
as an actor. His career was flourishing, and doing so without compromise. In 2011,
the '80s-set romantic comedy "Take Me Home Tonight" was released,
and on top of acting alongside Anna Faris and Chris Pratt, Grace was also a producer.
Grace relished the freedom he found in indie cinema. When he starred in "The
Giant Mechanical Man," for instance, he praised the independent flick to
The Hollywood Reporter for letting him play an antagonist again. Creatively, he'd found a home.
Just because he was thriving doesn’t mean that Topher Grace didn't still make career missteps.
In 2013, he starred in the ensemble comedy "The Big Wedding," which critics were fairly
united in loathing. Be that as it may, he managed to maintain positive acclaim for his
performance. Entertainment Weekly, for instance, bemoaned the film but praised Grace's work.
A year earlier, the actor had achieved a different kind of success via a Jedi mind
trick wherein he convinced the world that he was now an editor. In 2012, Slash Film
reported that Grace had edited all three "Star Wars" prequels into one snappy, 85-minute film.
As stated by the website, the, quote, "interesting experiment […] is probably the best" of all
the fan edits available online. Contrary to popular belief, Grace isn't the biggest fan of
"Star Wars." Rather, as he told GQ, editing is simply a hobby he does with a friend, saying -
"It's kind of like a dad band thing, except […] even nerdier,"
"One of your hobbies, which uh -"
"Which is editing."
"Yes."
"Yeah but I won't bore anyone here with the nerdiest hobby of all time
-no offense to the editor."
For the majority of his career, Topher Grace had managed to keep a tight lid on his personal life.
But that changed at the start of 2014 when the actor was reported by Just Jared to be
dating actor Ashley Hinshaw. A year later, People reported that the two were engaged.
Professionally, Grace found himself stepping to a creative rhythm that suited him. As shared
during an interview with The Wrap, he was still re-cutting famous films, with "Boogie Nights"
enjoying an abbreviated edit by his hand. As he once told HuffPost, the process gave him a
better understanding of the film medium and his own acting approach. Certainly,
he was making stronger choices that suited him. On top of starring in Chris Nolan's "Interstellar,"
the star also enjoyed hamming it up as a villain in the stoner-action flick "American Ultra."
However, as his role in the 2015 political drama "Truth" would suggest,
he would soon use those same skills to engage artistically with politics.
While in conversation with GQ, Topher Grace reflected that when it comes to politics -
"There's very little you should say, as an actor."
Instead, he argued that he likes to include what he sees in the news
into his performances. This sentiment formed the foundations of Grace's next phase of work,
and he certainly seemed to embrace it when he starred in the 2017 war satire "War Machine."
Inspired by a true story of combatant incompetence investigated by Rolling
Stone writer Michael Hastings, Grace plays a bumbling military press advisor. The
project also gave the star another chance to reunite with Brad Pitt.
Almost 20 years later, he'd proudly come full circle with the Hollywood legend.
Everything appeared to click for Grace as he approached his 40s, including his relationship
with Ashley Hinshaw. In 2016, People announced that the couple had married at a ceremony in Santa
Barbara, and a year later, the two celebrated the birth of their first child, daughter Mabel Jane.
Topher Grace hit his stride in 2018 with two critically acclaimed performances that
perfectly fit his modus operandi: Spike Lee's Oscar-nominated satire "BlacKkKlansman" and David
Robert Mitchell's slacker noir "Under the Silver Lake." Speaking to IndieWire, Grace reflected that
being at Cannes promoting both films validated his initial mission plan all those years ago.
While "Under the Silver Lake" earned him indie cool points,
he was still playing "Super Mario Bros." between takes with Andrew Garfield,
according to Empire, so his nerd side was still very much alive and well.
Certainly, he'd earned it. In depicting former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in "BlacKkKlansman,"
Grace admitted to Deadline that he struggled to embody the intense evil of his character.
Explaining that Lee had to reassure him that it was only a movie,
albeit with an important message behind it, Grace explained -
"I found it hard to deal with it because [the character had] so much hate."
Hot off his successful year as an indie darling,
Topher Grace doubled down on using his acting to engage with social
and political discourse in some interesting ways. The actor journeyed into his 40s with a
performance in an episode of Charlie Brooker's technological dystopia show "Black Mirror."
Wearing a man-bun wig for the role, Grace explained to Vulture that his
look was riffing on how tech entrepreneurs use very consciously crafted branding to, quote,
"maneuver through the media easily." Grace's keen observational skills were clearly helping
to root his characters in uncomfortable truths — something which became disturbingly clear when
he starred in the pandemic drama "The Hot Zone" mere months before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
During a panel interview with Deadline, Grace talked about how distance from the last disaster
makes us relaxed and vulnerable for another. He argued we've likewise been, quote,
"lulled into a sense of complacency" about a potential pandemic, too. As he told GQ,
his statements weren't very popular. But dang, they turned out to be uncomfortably prescient.
In 2020, Grace and Ashley Hinshaw welcomed their second child, and as Grace told GQ,
it informed his new performance as a writer balancing work with caring for two very young
children in the comedy series "Home Economics." Bringing the star back to his sitcom roots,
he suggested that the character was going through a similar time as him, saying -
"I understood that underwater feeling you have when the kids are really young,
and you're trying to live out creative passions."
As has been the case for so many of Grace's projects and performances,
the role blurred boundaries between reality and fiction, as he confided to Deadline -
"It was like, is this even acting? I'd be home changing diapers,
and then I'd clock in at work and they'd hand me two diapers."
It was a suitable transformation for a star who performed between artifice and
reality for much of his career. Having spent his formative years growing up on
screen in "That '70s Show," Grace was now maturing as a father — on-screen and off.
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