The Iron Claw releases in theaters December 22. Interviews conducted by Matt Fowler and Amelia Emberwing.
There’s a nebulous term in the world of professional wrestling to describe the unspoken contract between the wrestlers and the crowd. “Kayfabe” covers a lot of ground where the reality of sports entertainment is concerned. There’s an understanding between everybody involved that it’s scripted, the outcomes predetermined, but meanwhile we also pretend that it’s an actual competitive event unfolding in front of us. It’s truly the most fascinating thing about sports entertainment (the other moniker pro wrestling sometimes embraces) and it’s one of the things the cast and crew of The Iron Claw did absolutely right.
“I think wrestling is a genuine art form,” writer and director Sean Durkin told us, “I think the athleticism, the choreography, there's nothing else like it.”
It’s clear Durkin is a fan from way back. “As a kid, I was really into it, completely obsessed. Just watched everything I could, got every old VHS tape I could find, wrestling, toys, magazines. I mean, it was in the late eighties, early nineties. It was everything to me.”
So he was never not going to approach the portrayal of pro wrestling on screen without respect and appreciation, something that he passed along to the cast. It’s a good thing, too, because most of the cast wasn’t at all familiar with professional wrestling.
Jeremy Allen White, who plays Kerry Von Erich, described his familiarity with wrestling as “minimal” and “I was aware of (it).” Zac Efron, as Kerry’s older brother Kevin Von Erich, chimed in with “yeah, same.” The cast was a wonderfully blank canvas on which to project an appreciation for the art of pro wrestling.
How The Cast Trained To Step Into The Ring
Like the story of the Von Erich’s themselves, the account of preparing for the film instilled an affinity for grappling in its cast, starts with the patriarch Fritz Von Erich, and actor Holt McCallany. The film opens with Fritz mid-match, a sequence that sets the tone for physicality for the rest of the movie.
“I knew that in those early sequences, I was going to have to look like Fritz did in the fifties,” McCallany told us, “and I was going to have to be able to wrestle.” An avid fan of combat sports, he came around to appreciating just how tough the scripted world of sports entertainment can be.
“I developed a huge amount of respect and admiration for the people that do this professionally because it requires tremendous athleticism,” but also acknowledged the two halves of the world. “You can be a good wrestler, but if you don't have a charismatic personality, you're not going to become a star in the world of professional wrestling.”
To bring a dose of reality to the cast, even childhood fan Sean Durkin found out he didn’t have the full picture himself.
“I kind of had this fantasy that once we built the ring, I could get in it and learn how to do some stuff, and I just got in and bounce off the ropes. And you realize how hard they are and how hard the mat is … even bouncing off the ropes once is so painful that I couldn't even do it. And so I think the physical rigor of it is beyond the imagination of someone who doesn't do it.”
Enter Chavo Guerrero Jr., a member of a legendary wrestling family, former champ and current wrestling consultant working to enlighten the imaginations of people who don’t do it, as Sean Durkin put it.
At the Dallas world premiere of The Iron Claw, Guerrero told us, “I’m not training them to wrestle at Wrestlemania, I’m training them to look like wrestlers. But it’s not like it was a special ring. It’s still a real wrestling ring.”
They Filmed Full Matches for The Iron Claw
The next step was filming the matches in as full and complete a context as possible, complete with a live audience. “I treated the matches like I treat any scene,” Durkin described. “When I shoot a scene, I run it from top to bottom so that the actors can be in it, can have the full interaction, can feel the full momentum of the moment. I felt the wrestling match was the same way. I wanted them to have the intro, to get amped up, to start the match, to let it evolve, and also to have the audience behind it.”
Stanley Simons, who plays little brother Mike Von Erich in the film, thinks he benefited from this approach. “The crowd added a lot… As soon as Sean yelled at action, they were fired up, stomping their feet, screaming, yelling, and it definitely added a sense of realism for myself. And then as soon as he yelled, cut, they were silent. It was interesting and definitely helped get me there.”
But while Chavo Guerrro designed all the matches taking place in front of the crowd, and trained the actors on how to pull it all off when the cameras rolled, Zac Efron took away more than just the technical side of wrestling from his work with the former champ, telling us, “he's one of the best to ever do it. So just in working with him, I think it opened our eyes to the world of wrestling in ways that we never had even thought about it before.”
Jeremy Allan White agrees, adding “I always thought of it as something that was almost like purely physical or just about athletics... and Chavo really opened my eyes to the narrative and the storytelling… and the importance of those moments in between the moves.”
And that’s truly what The Iron Claw does best in its portrayal of professional wrestling. In spite of being in charge making sure the wrestling looked good on screen, the idea that the moves aren’t the most important part was not lost on Chavo Guerrero. “The most important aspect of this film is that this is not a wrestling movie. It’s a family movie.”
The Real Life Von Erich Family Tragedy Is Not The Whole Story
Indeed, the Von Erich’s story is epically tragic and the details of it too lengthy to get into here, or even in the movie for that matter according to Sean Durkin. “That was a really difficult thing in writing (the movie)” he said, “was how to include enough (tragedy) but not include too much because a film cannot sustain that much tragedy. It's not possible.”
And this is where we come back to the idea of kayfabe. For The Iron Claw, yes the tragedy of the Von Erich family is front and center and on the surface of the story, but, like pro wrestling, the movie has another layer that’s easy to overlook.
Sean Durkin had this to say about what’s going on on screen, versus what story is being told. “For me, it was never about the tragedy. For me, it was about the absence of grief and how the lack of grief is what perpetuates what happens in the film.”
So yes, The Iron Claw is based on real events and real people. It’s also a portrayal of a bigger idea, one that exists, as Jeremy Allan White excellently put it, in the moments in between the moves. That’s the artistry of it. That’s where pro wrestling is real.
As for how real the moves are? Jeremy Allan White probably puts it best as well…
“The stuff hurts.”
