Jeremy Allen White is teaming up with Zac Efron and Harris Dickinson to play a trio of wrestling brothers. The actors are set to star in A24’s “The Iron Claw,” in which they’ll play the real-life wrestling siblings the Von Erichs. Deadline first broke the news of White’s casting, and A24 confirmed the news on Twitter. The movie is written and directed by Sean Durkin.
The movie will follow the rise and fall of the Von Erichs, a family wrestling dynasty. The family’s patriarch, Jack Adkisson, used the name Fritz Von Erich as his wrestling gimmick when he first broke into the sport. Five of his six children would go on to become professional wrestlers as well. When Fritz died in 1997, five of his six sons had died before him, leading to an urban legend about the family being “cursed.” White will play Kerry Von Erich, the most famous member of the family. Efron will play Kevin, the last surviving son, and Dickinson will play David.
It seems like the roles will require all three leading men to bulk up to play the wrestlers. Efron has been vocal in the past about how trying to obtain his “Baywatch” body left him depressed and burnt out. “That ‘Baywatch’ look, I don’t know if that’s really attainable. There’s just too little water in the skin. Like, it’s fake; it looks CGI’d,” he told Men’s Health in their October issue. “And that required Lasix, powerful diuretics, to achieve. So I don’t need to do that.”
Meanwhile, White is coming off of season one of “The Bear,” the breakout summer hit that’s been renewed for a second season. White told Variety on Sept. 13 that he hadn’t expected fan response to the show. “There’s no science for it . . . I knew that it would be liked, but I didn’t realise it would so quickly connect with as many people as it seems to have,” he told the outlet.
