Jeremy Allen White says Zac Efron sent him some “really lovely” advice after he booked The Iron Claw

The two will play on-screen siblings as the famous Von Erich brothers

Aux News The Iron Claw
Jeremy Allen White says Zac Efron sent him some “really lovely” advice after he booked The Iron Claw
Jeremy Allen White Photo: Amy Sussman

The Bear star Jeremy Allen White says following the rapturous appraisal of the kitchen-set drama the “phones started to ring.” With the summer series’ quick rise to television acclaim, he woke up one day to four scripts from A24 on his desk. The winner of the four turned out to be Sean Durkin’s The Iron Claw, about the tragic professional wrestling troupe comprised of three brothers.

White will star in the film as Kerry Von Erich (a.k.a. the Texas Tornado), opposite his on-screen siblings Zac Efron and Harris Dickinson. In an interview with GQ, White says when he officially booked the role, Efron wrote him a “really lovely” note.

“Get training, eat, keep doing what you’re doing, stay hard,” it read.

Efron knows a bit about the rigors of bulking up for a role. He recently opened up about the long-term mental and physical effects preparing for his 2017 Baywatch role put him through, citing insomnia and extreme depression as a result of his brutal diet and workout regimen.

“I started to develop insomnia, and I fell into a pretty bad depression, for a long time. Something about that experience burned me out,” Efron revealed to Men’s Health in October. “I had a really hard time re-centering. Ultimately they chalked it up to taking way too many diuretics for way too long, and it messed something up.”

Efron’s already showed off a bit of his transformation for the role of WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Von Erich, with the wrestler himself praising his dedication to the job.

“But I saw a picture of the guy, he looked great. I don’t think I ever looked that good,” Von Erich told TMZ. “I just saw this picture and he looks really good and muscular. He must really be working out hard. From the picture that they showed me at first, and the picture I saw the other day, he must really be working hard… My daughters love him, and so they think he’s the right guy to do it.”

White tells GQ he plans on putting on forty pounds of muscle for The Iron Claw. Hopefully, Efron can bestow some knowledge about maintaining a balance when it comes to behind-the-scenes training for a role that requires quite a bit from the body. What else are bulky, ripped, on-screen brothers for?

7 Comments

  • bobwworfington-av says:

    Fritz Von Erich is roasting his nuts in Hell right now for what he did to those boys. I’m anxious to see what Holt McCallany does with it.

    You lose three boys to suicide, another to drug use and yet another one drowns in a puddle? The fuck you even doing?

  • mshep-av says:

    White tells GQ he plans on putting on forty pounds of muscle for The Iron Claw.Something about the verb tense here bugs the shit out of me. The movie’s not out yet, but it’s been in production since at least October, so presumably White’s put on all the muscle he’s going to by this point.

    Not sure if this is some entertainment journalism norm or what, but it’s all over the AV Club. “So and so is joining the cast of the movie that’s coming out in 3 weeks.” Maybe there’s just no better way to say it without getting clunky?

    • dirtside-av says:

      For “is joining the cast,” it’s a complex combination of when the actor agreed to the casting, how far in advance of production that is, and when it becomes news. However it’s simplified if you think of “the cast” as “the publicly-acknowledged members of the cast,” in which case the present tense always works because even though the actor may have filmed all their scenes a year ago, it wasn’t public knowledge (or at least, widely reported-upon, even if it wasn’t technically secret) until now, so they “are joining the cast” in the sense that they are now being added to the list of names that constitute “the cast.”Re putting on muscle, it’s possible that he’s putting on muscle over time because they’re filming stuff early on where the character can be less muscular, and then later on will film the stuff where he’s more muscular. So that doesn’t necessarily constitute a problem.

      • jakubazookas-av says:

        40 lbs is really a lot… even with added testosterone it would probably take about 7 months to gain 40 lbs of muscle… though I suppose he’ll have more anabolic options… and hey, he can probably get away w/ 30 bc the camera adds 10, right?

      • mshep-av says:

        I understand what’s meant when it’s said, just feels inapt. Awkward. As for “putting on muscle,” print magazine interviews are usually conducted months before they are actually published, so it’s likely that, at the time of the interview, he was planning on putting on the muscle. Phrasing it as “White told GQ he planned on putting on forty pounds of muscle for The Iron Claw,” is factually accurate and unambiguous. Journalism!

  • electricsheep198-av says:

    “… stay hard”I’m sorry, exactly what kind of movie is this?

  • aaronvoeltz-av says:

    Forget all the muscle bro garbage. Get this guy to play young Gene Wilder.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Share Tweet Submit Pin