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The Logistics of Getting Gooey: Topher Grace said that at the beginning of filming they actually tried using real goo. “Like the first day we did, they actually poured some kind of tar-like substance on me. I remember the stuff was getting in my eyes and I remember thinking, ‘This is going to be a long shoot.’ They tried lots of different things. There was a kind of goop that they'd smear on the suit to give it the effect of being more liquid. That remained to the end. It was kind of unpleasant.
But the good thing about Sam in terms of CGI - and there is a bunch of CGI, especially the character of Venom - but the good thing about him is that if it can be done in camera, meaning if there can be no special effects, or if it can be done physically, he'll do it which is ironic because Venom… My personal belief is that that character and the way he looks in the comic books came out of a reaction to like CGI, which at the time was like that water in The Abyss, kind of hard water, or in T2. I admire Sam for that because I realized that the more he makes, especially when I was watching the movie, the more that he filmed it on the set, the more it feels kind of authentic.”
Expressing Emotions Through a Very Limiting Costume: Grace credited his director with helping him be able to capture exactly how his character was feeling. “The best thing about what Sam does is he’s an actor’s director, which is easier said than done in a huge budget movie like this. You would never know that you were in this huge blockbuster the way he directs you, and I think he got a lot of it out of me. I was actually surprised when I was watching the film that it was so moving at certain points. Most of the time directors can’t wait to get to the big action scene, but he’s just the opposite. Obviously he’s really good at those action scenes, but the way he works with his actors, he cares about every little nuance. It was an amazing experience working with someone who can balance those two things. I don’t know if I’ll ever be that lucky again.”
Topher Grace Hated His Fangs: “I don’t want to see those again. They were like really painful. It was weird. It was an hour to put on the suit, but that’s actually not very painful. The only thing about the suit is there’s no way to go to the bathroom in the suit, which Tobey’s never told me. You have to be kind of careful with that. I mean, just not drinking a lot of liquids in the morning. The make-up is four hours, the prosthetic make-up, which really wasn’t painful. It just took a lot of patience because you sit there. There’s nothing to do. You can’t read a newspaper. You have to keep your head straight and they would glue all the vines onto my face. They’d pull me up on wires, which was a little bit of a wedgie situation (laughing) which is not that awful. But the fangs were actually bruising my gums. It’s good though. I guess it’s kind of a method way to get into being mean.”
On Being Immortalized as an Action Figure: “Oh yeah, someone just gave that to me. That’s great. The tongue is not to scale by the way. (Laughing) That was CGI. Yeah, it’s great. There’s part of me that wishes at the end of these movies that you could be 10 years old again and go experience it the way you would have when you were younger. I’m probably the geekiest dude to ever be in one of these films so I’m enjoying it pretty much on that level anyway.”
Mixing Things Up: Normally he plays the nice guy but in Spider-Man 3 Grace gets to veer away from being Mr Sensitive. “The whole acting thing is a buffet,” explained Grace. “One, in terms of role choice and movie choice, I like to do lots of different things and I think that’s the whole fun of it. But I also see it as a buffet in terms of the character. I’d just come off In Good Company when I started this film and that’s where I’m kind of playing a jerk at the beginning. I become a lot nicer through the film. This just seemed like exactly the opposite where I’m a nice, jovial guy at the beginning and then become more of a jerk. I thought it’s a great challenge. It’s literally the opposite. It’s a different form.”
Things May Change After Spider-Man 3: Is Grace prepared for a new level of fame and attention? “Maybe I’m being naïve, but I don’t feel like a lot’s going to change,” replied Grace. “It’s funny because Tobey and Kirsten, while we were doing the movie, would look at me like, ‘Get ready,’ and I’d say, ‘For what?’ (Laughing) I don’t know. I would say that [a good] thing that a sitcom provides you, especially one like ’70s, which wasn’t as popular as something like Friends, there was an ability to understand what it was to be famous and be on television, but not really be that famous. I’ve used this metaphor [before]. It’s not like having this white hot spotlight on you. It’s more like having a night light on you for a long period of time. I didn’t work outside the ’70s show for the first two years, and it wasn’t really that big a hit until the third year. It was kind of a great way to see what people were doing outside the show that were in films, and yet not have to participate yet. It was kind of a great way to ease your way into fame.”
