The flares, the hair, the horror - it's 1976 again

The actor who plays a polyester-handicapped character in a sitcom set in the 70s tells Frances Grant that some things never change.

The 70s were the decade taste forgot. Young man of the 90s Topher Grace agrees with this, although his opinion once landed him in hot water.

"It's tough with the bell-bottoms and the hair," admits the actor who plays Eric Forman, a lead character in the gang of teenagers on the time-warp sitcom That 70s Show.

The flares and platforms might have status as retro hip, but Grace is willing to utter the truth about those ugly clothes of the past.

"Yeah, you know, I've gotten into trouble in some article saying how terrible I think the clothing is," says Grace on the phone from the show's studio base in Los Angeles.

"We had some fashion editor come and talk to us. I've forgotten what I said, but it didn't turn out well in the newspaper."

Another candid confession follows. "And I'm not even better-looking, that's the worst part," he says of his real-life appearance compared to his bad-haircut-and-polyester-handicapped character.

Grace's self-deprecating jokiness works a charm. "This is my first foreign interview," he says. "So what day is it there ... Thursday lunchtime? It's Wednesday afternoon here. Oh, that's just wild. Very cool."

After just eight months in the entertainment business, the 20-year-old from Connecticut is far from blase.

But then it was nerves, he reckons, that got him the part, plus right-time-right place - and having the right schoolmate.

The show's creators and executive producers, Bonnie and Terry Turner (Wayne's World, 3rd Rock From The Sun) had a daughter at Grace's high school and saw him in a play on parents' night.

He struck them as right for the unconfident and much put-upon Eric and asked him to audition.

"I was hideously nervous but somehow I got through it. And I was not good in either the school play or the audition, so I wonder."

But now the acting bug has bitten. "It's turned out to be really good for me, I really enjoy it. I hadn't done a lot of stuff in my life, so you know ... it's neat to have a job."

With no acting experience, he was relieved to be playing a character close to his own.

"It's great because you can search your personal life for stuff that'll be funny on air. You know, I was not the coolest kid in high school. I just wasn't that popular.

"I think Eric is a neat guy but not the coolest guy around, and that's part of his charm. So I'm trying to bring some of that to it because I definitely am well-rehearsed at being a loser in high school."

Grace took a year's leave from university to do the show and began boning up on the decade that is the show's main gimmick. The clothes were duds but the 70s were still a happening time.

"I think it's neat to place a show in 1976, especially in America. So much bad stuff happened in our country previous to that - the Kennedy shootings, Watergate, the Vietnam War, the whole explosion of the 60s ...

"Then we get to the bicentenary of the nation, 1976, but we didn't really know what we were celebrating. And they - the younger generation in the show - are trying to figure out who and what they are. It's really neat to portray that."
Although the sitcom's 20-year time warp is a main source of the jokes, the show is essentially a modern one, he says.

The situations Eric faces - first kiss, first girlfriend, struggling for independence from his overbearing parents - are the same for 90s teens.
Nor do the 70s gang on the show seem naive to young people of the more cynical 90s.

"Not at all. I just turned 20 and most of these things are happening now in my life. I wish I could be as mature as some of the actors who say, 'Oh I remember when that was happening to me.'

"But this is happening to me, most of the same situations, and it's neat ... you can learn stuff from these characters."

Grace is more concerned with the six-month time difference between where the show is up to in the United States and here.

Proud of its progress and the team-work of the cast, he's dead keen to give "the
people in New Zealand a sneak peek" of what's to come.

Look out for The Pill episode, he says, when Eric finds out by accident that girlfriend Donna's taking the pill and wonders whether she's got him in mind.

There's also the will-they-won't-they prom night finale. Filming of the first season has just wrapped, and Grace says he can't wait to shed those clothes which hide no flaws. "I'm really skinny. Like, right now if you could see me, I dress in really baggy clothes. But [in 70s duds] there's no way to hide that."

There's another thing on the immediate agenda. The season has ended and The Hair Decade can wait. "I'm getting a buzz, I'm cutting it all off ... I'm so excited."

Who: Topher Grace

What: That 70s Show

Where: TV3

When 8 pm