Everybody’s favorite chef, Jeremy Allen White, joins Zac Efron and Harris Dickinson in The Iron Claw
White will portray the late Kerry Von Erich in Sean Durkin's film about the wrestling dynasty
Aux News Harris Dickinson
Jeremy Allen White is setting aside his kitchen apron and stepping into a very different kind of costume for Sean Durkin’s The Iron Claw at A24, per Deadline. White joins Zac Efron and Harris Dickinson in playing three of the six sons in the Von Erich wrestling dynasty (Kerry, Kevin, and David respectively).
Per the film’s logline, the movie is “[b]ased on the true story of the Von Erichs, the film follows the rise and fall of the Von Erich family, a dynasty of wrestlers who made a huge impact on the sport from the 1960s to the present day.”
The full story is a lot more complicated—and much more tragic. Family patriarch Jack Adkisson first joined the wrestling biz under the persona Fritz Von Erich, a Prussian Nazi character (per SlashFilm). Adkisson had six sons, one who tragically died as a child and five who followed him into the ring as wrestlers. Of those five, four passed away before their father, three by suicide. Kevin Von Erich is the last living son (two of his children, and one of his brother Kerry’s, also followed in the family footsteps as wrestlers).
It’s dark subject matter, but certainly within the wheelhouse of Durkin, who previously directed Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Nest. White, too, has proven his chops in complicated family dramas, first on Shameless and lately on The Bear, in which he grapples with the suicide of his older brother Michael (Jon Bernthal) while trying to keep the family business afloat.
Efron is not historically known for dramas, but he’s been flexing his dramatic muscles lately with films like Gold and Firestarter. Dickinson, meanwhile, is an up-and-comer most recently seen in Where The Crawdads Sing and See How They Run. Presumably, there are some more big, strong, white dude casting announcements on the way to fill out the Von Erich family.
6 Comments
He’s great in I Think You Should Leave.
I’m surprised that Zac isn’t playing Kerry, but Kevin is the one who lived longest so that’s probably why he took that role. Kerry was always the ne destined to be the big star and he probably would have been had he not had that motorcycle accident that started his slide that resulted in his death. I’m interested to see who they get to play the rest of the family.
Yikes. Not a flattering pic of Efron.
It might be related to the accident he had recently. Poor guy, looks like he aged a decade.https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/15/entertainment/zac-efron-almost-died/index.html
This is…interesting casting, since Kerry and Kevin were both 6′ 2″ and weighed in at 250 and 220 respectively. David was billed as 6′ 7″ and 235. They might have been better suited getting some of the actors from the Starz series Heels, who are bigger, already trained, and can do legitimate looking wrestling action.
I’ve liked Efron and White in various roles, so I’ll give them a chance to prove they were the right choices. Not sure they were.
Thankfully 80s World Class was a style of wrestling that was a lot more basic & brawling-oriented than even your average indy in 2022. They let the emotions of the storyline hook the crowd, which is what made them so great at their peak.