Iron Claw director addresses Von Erich family 'curse' and what the real problem was

The director behind Zac Efron's new movie The Iron Claw has shared his thoughts on the Von Erich family 'curse' after delving into the world of the wrestling family.

Unless you're a big wrestling fan, chances are you've never heard of the Von Erich family. But despite making an entire film about their story, The Iron Claw director Sean Durkin says that's fine.

In fact, 'the less' you know, 'the better', Durkin says.

UNILAD sat down with Durkin and star Efron to discuss the movie, with Durkin stressing that you don't 'need to know anything about wrestling' before watching The Iron Claw, because it's 'not a wrestling movie'.

And I know what you might be thinking - if you've seen the ads, you'll know that Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, and Stanley Simons portray the brothers who made history in professional wrestling.

But while the film does spend a fair amount of time in the ring, it's 'really about family' - and a battle-scarred family, at that.

If you are familiar with the Von Erichs, you'll know that the family experienced more than their fair share of tragedy, so much so that dad Fritz Von Erich believed they might be cursed.

His attempts to counter the curse involved making the family the 'toughest, strongest, [the] most successful', and his sons initially believed he might be right.

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But one tragedy only continued to lead to the next - so much so that Durkin struggled to capture it all.

He tells UNILAD: "There's just there's so much tragedy in this family that didn't make it into the film, because it just couldn't fit."

"It's hard on a human level to leave all that stuff out," he continues. "Because it was so impactful to them and their story, but you have to make really tough choices so that it can even be a movie."

Durkin still managed to pack in a hell of a lot of tragedy, though, with the creation of the film offering him unique insight to the source of the Von Erich's troubles.

Sharing his thoughts on the 'curse', the director says: "I think it was about not communicating and not looking at the core problem."

"When you don't grieve, and you don't express what you're feeling, it eats at you. And I think that's ultimately what happened," he adds.

"I think there was some bad luck, and there was also just not a place to express, and I think that was the thing that took over."

Efron agrees with Durkin, adding that he 'relied a lot' on the director to help do justice to his role of Kevin Von Erich, whose career and relationships we follow throughout The Iron Claw.

"This was clearly a story that meant a lot to [Sean]," Efron tells UNILAD. "There was such nuance and detail with any question I could come up with.

"No matter how deep or ambiguous it might have been, he already was circling in on what I was referencing."

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"That kind of intelligence about the material, that means it's coming from the heart and something that you really care about, to care to communicate those things," Efron continues.

"So that's why I wanted to make this movie with Sean. Just that level of commitment."

While also feeding into his love of wrestling, Durkin hopes his movie will raise questions about masculinity, and explore how 'harmful' the 'moulds of masculinity' could be.

"It was just such a rich family to explore," he says. "It's such a specific family and such a specific place in time, but it seems to be resonating with such a wide range of people."

The Iron Claw arrives in UK cinemas on February 9.