Topher Grace recalls making a fan cry during a screening of Predators. The third installment in the Predator franchise was released in 2010, following an ensemble cast that included Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins, Laurence Fishburne, and Mahershala Ali. They played skilled assassins who have been abducted and placed on a strange planet. Facing two warring extraterrestrial killers, the characters have to find a way back to Earth.
Grace portrayed one of those skilled assassins in Nimród Antal’s film, though his character didn’t seem like the type. The actor played Edwin, a doctor who was ultimately revealed to be a serial killer. In one scene from Predators, prior to the reveal of Edwin’s murderous tendencies, the character’s foot gets stuck in a trap and he starts crying. At that point in the movie, with Edwin depicted as a doctor unfairly lumped together with a bunch of professional killers, the audience is meant to feel sympathy for him. But as Grace recently recalled, one moviegoer was less than thrilled with Grace’s performance in the sci-fi action movie.
During an interview with PeopleTV, Grace told the story of watching Predators with a general audience. Because of a previously scheduled commitment, the actor couldn’t attend the film’s premiere. He decided, instead, to attend a local screening. Grace describes sitting in front of a fellow attendee that was rather dismissive of Predators, particularly the scene where Edwin is caught in a trap. Though, as the star of That 70’s Show tells it, the moviegoer quickly changed his tune once confronted. You can read Grace’s quote, from EW, below.
“My character starts crying because his foot’s in a trap and you kind of have to feel for him and then it’s revealed that he’s a psycho. And so, I start crying. It was a hard day at work for me to like, get there, and also you’re playing two different characters, kind of. So, I’m watching this film in the movie theater and this guy goes, ‘This guy’s crying like a little bitch!. I turn around and I go, ‘What’s up now?’ And this guy’s mind exploded. He was like, ‘Oh my God! You’re here and you’re on the [screen]. I think it was the most scared I’d ever seen someone in a movie theater because he, like, realized I was [the movie] serial killer and then I turned around in front of him. … He started crying, it was great.”
The situation Grace describes is immensely relatable. Most have said things about someone that they wouldn’t repeat in the person’s presence. And, for actors who can be notoriously averse to watching their own work, as Jordan Peele has described, it can sting to see that something you’ve put effort into is met with casual dismissal. For any performer who has been quickly rejected, Grace’s story can’t help but come across as a delicious bit of revenge. For the macho moviegoer as well, he has a hell of a memory to share with others. Although, he might choose to omit the part where he started crying.
It’s even funnier because as Grace has noted, he was swayed into joining the cast of the ABC sitcom Home Economics because all he’d been getting was offers to play horrible people. Clearly, at some point, with his roles in Black Mirror and BlacKkKlansman, the actor became quite capable of portraying horrible people. But as the Predators story indicates, perhaps Grace was always convincing. Convincing enough, apparently, to bring a stranger to tears.
More: EW