‘Looking like a pro was a lot of hard work’
◆ Star Zac Efron and director Sean Durkin talk to Rachael Davis about wrestling film The Iron Claw and its themes of toxic masculinity and brotherhood
There’s a moment early in The Iron Claw that perfectly sets the scene of the Von Erich family, the American wrestling dynasty whose prowess in the ring, and the tragedy that tortured them, brought them notoriety.
Patriarch Fritz Von Erich and three of his sons – Kevin, David and Mike – are eating scrambled eggs and bacon at the breakfast table when Fritz, apropos of nothing, lists his sons in order of his preference. Instead of being shocked or offended, the young men silently continue eating as their father tells them that “the rankings can always change: everyone can work their way up or down”.
Such is life under the thumb of Fritz, born Jack Barton Adkisson, whose German-inspired ring name was devised for the Nazi persona he adopted in his pro wrestling days in the 1960s and 1970s. Portrayed by Holt Mccallany, he’s shown to be a domineering father who pushed his sons to, and beyond, the limit in his quest for Von Erich wrestling supremacy, and leaves behind a family legacy known as the “Von Erich curse”.
The Iron Claw – named after the Von Erichs’ signature move – tells the tragic story of the wrestling family through the 1970s and 1980s. Zac Efron stars as Kevin, the eldest surviving Von Erich son at the start of the story – his older brother, Jack, died at the age of six by accidental drowning – while his brothers David,
Kerry, and Mike are played by Triangle Of Sadness’s Harris Dickinson, The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White, and Angelfish’s Stanley Simons respectively.
“I was not aware of the story before,” says Efron, 36, known for High School Musical, 17 Again and for playing serial killer Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile.
“I learned about it all almost exclusively from Sean (Durkin, director) – from footage that he put me on to and some documentaries.
“One of the fascinating things about the story is the world that it’s set in, the wrestling world…” he continues.
“It felt bigger than the world of wrestling, even though it is a love letter to the world of wrestling. There’s so much more in it.”
As Efron notes, while The Iron Claw is a wrestling story, it’s fundamentally more than that: it’s a story of toxic masculinity, of how oppressive, controlling male influence combines with a lack of emotional release to create a deadly cocktail of vaulting ambition and repression, and of the power of brotherhood.
“Sean’s really, with this story, and with these characters, I think, found a way into exploring (toxic masculinity) that’s not typical,” says Efron.
“And it’s much more layered, and not so easy to kind of just throw a name on it, you know – it really is a story about this guy’s survival
through this real world. So it’s, I think, just beautiful work from Sean and it’s one of the things that really made me excited to tell the story.”
“Very much at the core of it was this exploring this mould of masculinity,” agrees Durkin, 42.
“You have these guys who are in the ring, performing these huge emotions of elation, and being distraught when they lose, or being in great pain when they’re in a headlock or whatever… everything is really extreme in the ring.
“But then they go backstage, and they can’t show any real emotions in life. They have to keep it all inside and fall into this world of being a tough man, and all that nonsense.
“It was really rich territory to explore both sides of that, and how harmful that is.”
Efron’s Kevin serves as the through line in the film’s narrative. He trains hard, obviously very keen for his father’s approval and to work his way up his familial ranking system, but is often outstripped by his brothers who he remains close to through it all.
We follow Kevin throughout the highly emotional affair: seeing him fight in the ring, support his beloved brothers’ endeavours, get married, have his first baby, and suffer unimaginable tragedy, a feat which required Efron to be not only physically capable, but to embody a spectrum of emotion.
Efron, like his co-stars, went through a tough training regimen to build the body of a wrestler, and to learn how to fight convincingly in the ring scenes.
“Looking like a pro was a lot of hard work,” says Efron. “We had tremendous help from the guys who were wrestling opposite in the ring, and also from our stunt co-ordinators, and Chavo Guerrero, our wrestling guru on set.
“It was a lot of hard work, but very, very fun.”
Durkin – who also directed the Channel 4 series Southcliffe and 2020 film The Nest starring Jude Law – adds that emotional complexity and convincing performances were key to the fight scenes.
“I wanted to be able to shoot them in a way that felt very real, and was a really high level of wrestling,” he says.
“The guys worked really hard to learn how to wrestle, and to learn how to wrestle full matches, not just focus on the stunts and things.
“They were doing their own stunts, and learning how to do it, and that allowed us to shoot it the way we’d shoot any scene, which is to focus on the character and the emotion and to make decisions based on what’s the best way to tell the emotion of that point in the story…
“The goal there was to go on that journey with them, and be with Kevin in whatever way helped tell what he was going through.”