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
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?