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

Everybody’s favorite chef, Jeremy Allen White, joins Zac Efron and Harris Dickinson in The Iron Claw
Harris Dickinson; Jeremy Allen White; Zac Efron Photo: Joe Maher; Kevin Winter; Matt Winkelmeyer

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.

 
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