Topher Grace Reportedly Got an ‘Aggressive’ Phone Call About His David Duke Role
It looks like the real Ron Stallworth isn’t the only one getting bizarre phone calls about BlacKkKlansman, the movie based on the cop’s real-life infiltration of the KKK in Colorado Springs. Apparently Topher Grace, the actor who plays former Klan leader David Duke in Spike Lee’s film, recently got a threatening call of his own.
According to TMZ, someone called the actor up on his personal cell phone saying that his portrayal of the former Grand Wizard would ruin race relations in the country, using a gay slur in the process. It’s not clear if any specific threat was made, but Grace reportedly described the caller as “angry and aggressive” and made an incident report to the local police.
While the identity of the caller is still a mystery, David Duke himself seemed pretty concerned about the way he would be portrayed in the film, phoning Stallworth after seeing the trailer.
“In the trailer, it makes him off to be a buffoonish, cartoonish idiot,” Stallworth told NBC’s Lester Holt. “Spike made him look kind of stupid. But he was stupid in how this whole thing transpired 40 years ago.”
And sure, Grace may have played “an eminently punchable” Duke onscreen, but it’s not clear how his portrayal would make race relations worse in a country with a president who literally called white supremacists “very fine people.”
Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.
Follow Lauren Messman on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on VICE US.