Interview: Sean Durkin on ‘The Iron Claw’
In his latest film The Iron Claw, Sean Durkin – the writer and director behind Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Nest – delivers a gripping tale of brotherhood, ambition, and the relentless pursuit of greatness as he explores the true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothers, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. Through tragedy and triumph, under the shadow of their domineering father and coach, the brothers seek larger-than-life immortality on the biggest stage in sports.
The story of the Von Erich’s first landed on Durkin’s radar when he was a child growing up in the UK. “I was a fan of theirs as a kid,” he recalls. “I was really into wrestling and discovered them at some point. I just loved their style. I loved where they wrestled, the Sportatorium in Dallas. Nothing else was really like it and it really captured my imagination. It was a place I wanted to go but never got a chance to go. I just loved the family. I loved their energy and their brotherhood in the ring. You could really see the love they had for each other but they’re also all different. But also I was really haunted by what happened to them and and the tragedies that struck them. Both things stayed with me and when I started to revisit their story as a filmmaker, I thought it would be the perfect landscape to explore.”
The Von Erich brothers are brought to life with captivating intensity by Zac Efron, Harris Dickinson, Jeremy Allen White, and Stanley Simons. United by blood and fueled by a shared hunger for glory, the brothers embark on a journey that will take them to the pinnacle of sports entertainment in an attempt to carve out a place for themselves in the history-books of wrestling. The palpable camaraderie between Efron, Dickinson, White, and Simons ignites the screen with an electric intensity that is as mesmerizing as it is authentic. So much so, that viewers will be surprised to learn that Durkin did not do any screen tests or chemistry tests of any kind during the casting process for the film.
“I built the pieces one by one starting with Zac as the center,” he explains. “And then all the other actors are people I wanted to work with for a long time. So it was like reaching out to some of my favorite actors and just seeing if they’d be interested, and then just talking with them and getting a feel, building it based on, okay, like you have Zac and I know Jeremy, and I think they’d get along, and so building that piece by piece, feeling out that chemistry on a sort of instinctual level. You do that and it doesn’t always work when you get together [in the end] but in this case, it really worked. They really took to each other. They really felt like brothers and felt like a family.”
Anyone even slightly familiar with the Von Erichs will know that theirs is no easy path. As they navigate the treacherous waters of the wrestling world, they must confront betrayal, manipulation, and the looming shadow of their domineering father and coach, portrayed with chilling gravitas by Holt McCallany. Even though he’s actively participating in the destruction of their lives, you never once doubt his love for his children, a testament to the strength of McCallany’s performance. “I’ve described him as being the fabric of the film,” says Durkin. “His character, his performance. It’s so real and true to that sort of place in time. Holt really got inside Fritz, and understood him and understood his motives. We really believe that Fritz was always acting from a place of love even if it wasn’t actually as loving as he believed it was. He always thought he was doing the best thing for his family with the experience and knowledge he had from life. I think he just truly believed that, and so that’s how we approached it.”
As the story unfolds, Durkin skillfully intertwines moments of triumph and tragedy, painting a vivid portrait of a family torn apart by ambition yet bound together by love. Through a series of electrifying wrestling matches that slowly ramp up in both flair and intensity as the film – and the brothers’ careers – progresses, he captures the raw emotion and unbridled passion that define the world of professional wrestling, shining a light on the human drama that lies at its core. “We really wanted to create a journey with the wrestling matches,” he explains. “Where it starts in the late ’70s, it feels much more local. It’s not televised. There’s no cameras there. As their popularity grows and their federation’s popularity grows, they have a television show that’s broadcast nationally so everything gets a little bit shinier, a little bit brighter. There are multiple cameras. There are just things that make it feel like more like a show and then once we’re sort of past that pinnacle, we go much more into the psychological state of Kevin as he’s wrestling and that becomes less about the wrestling and more about his emotional perspective. So we transition from being about the wrestling to being about how the wrestling is affecting him emotionally.”
With a number of powerful, incredibly nuanced performances, pulse-pounding action, and an emotional center that will touch even the most cynical of audience numbers, The Iron Claw emerges as a poignant reminder of the timeless importance of family – the cornerstone of our lives, our loves, and our legacies. It’s a theme that Durkin has also explored in some of his other films, including both Martha Marcy May Marlene, which explored familial dynamics through a cult setting, and The Nest, which attempted to deconstruct traditional family roles in complex, searing manner. “Family is a very rich area that is filled with drama, complicated relationships and all the things I’m interested in,” he says. “With each of the films, they all look at questioning why we believe what we believe, questioning where we come from, and the effects that those beliefs have on us. That moment of questioning, for a character to ask, ‘What is actually mine and what was given to me by my family or the place I come from?’ It’s all about the journey of finding your truest self. I think each film in some ways does that, and each film also ends in a different place on that. It’s either the beginning, arriving at the beginning of that journey or in this case, it’s more of a full cycle. But yeah, I’m really fascinated by that.”
The Iron Claw is now playing in theaters in the UK and the US.