Topher Grace

Christopher John "Topher" Grace (born July 12, 1978) is an American actor, best known for playing the lead role of Eric Forman on the long-running Fox live-action sitcom That '70s Show, and the villain Eddie Brock, Jr./Venom in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3.

Grace was cast as Eric Forman on Fox's That '70s Show, which debuted in 1998. The sitcom was successful and Grace became well known among television watchers; he played the role until the seventh season, after which he left to prepare for his upcoming film, Spider-Man 3. The series was renewed for another season despite his absence before its ending in 2006. Grace would make a very brief guest appearance in the last episode.

Grace briefly attended college at the University of Southern California, but left during his freshman year to concentrate on his television work and to pursue a career in film. He played a prep school student who uses cocaine and introduces his girlfriend to heroin 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 but due to his filming Spider-Man 3 he had to drop out. He also appeared in director Mike Newell's 2003 film Mona Lisa Smile.

In 2004, Grace had the starring role in two major feature films; he played the leading roles in the Robert Luketic-directed Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! and the Paul Weitz dramedy, In Good Company, in which he played an ambitious but troubled corporate executive. That same year, Grace also starred in the film P.S., which received only a limited theatrical release. Grace's work in P.S. and In Good Company was recognized by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures in the category of "Breakthrough Performance by an Actor".

In 2007, Grace portrayed Eddie Brock / Venom in Spider-Man 3, directed by Sam Raimi. Sony have announced that they feel he is unable to "carry" a blockbuster movie, so if the movie was to be made, he would not be chosen. Grace himself was a fan of the comics, and read the Venom stories as a kid. Grace is set to appear in the 1980s retro comedy Kids in America. Grace co-wrote the script and will be co-producing the film.