The Iron Claw is a heartbreaking exploration of brotherhood and the power to survive. One of the late breaking films of the year headed into the award season, but a true stand out for the year. Sean Durkin, the writer and director, spoke with us about the lifelong desire to make a film about the Von Erich family, capturing the intimate bond of brothers, and utilizing music as a storytelling device.

Kenzie Vanunu: Hi Sean! It’s such an honor to speak with you, congratulations on the film!
Sean Durkin: Thanks so much!

Kenzie Vanunu: I was lucky enough to attend the LA premiere of the film and hear you speak about what almost a lifelong journey it’s been for you to get this film made since you became familiar with the family when you were young. I’m curious how the film that is The Iron Claw finally came together.
Sean Durkin: Yeah, I mean, like I said, I loved them as a kid and loved wrestling as a kid. And then as a filmmaker, had wanted to make a sports movie. And I think, you know, I was sort of thinking about what new projects could be. And I had met with the person, who became my producing partner on this, Tessa Ross. And it just happened to be the timing, where I just started thinking about them again, and she had said, like, you know, whatever you want to do, I want to do and so those two things came together at once. And it just sort of generated energy for the project and exploring it. And the first thing I did was I gathered all the facts that I could about the family. So I made this extensive timeline of everything from Fritz’s childhood, through, you know, Kevin now, and laid out this detailed timeline of events. And basically, it was looking at this epic Greek tragedy, and had to figure out how to focus it into a film. And the thing that just kept rising to the top was Kevin’s story, and Kevin’s survival and how he survived this, you know, because at first when you look at it, and there’s a lot of narrative about there being this curse, and and so it was quite a mythical story of like, how does Kevin break the curse? And move on to have this sort of why’s? You know, he’s such a wise person, and like, how did he get there? What did he go through and just like the way he talks about the tragedy, and the good times, he’s just so open about it all. And I just found that there was something in his truth that he found, that was really inspiring. And that really became the center of the film.

Kenzie Vanunu: I had described the film almost as Little Women but about brothers. 
Sean Durkin: Mhm, yeah. I love that!
Kenzie Vanunu: The way Little Women was a bond between sisters but also the standards imposed on women by society is kind of mirrored here with the bond of the brothers and then their dad’s forced principles of what he considers masculinity.
Sean Durkin: Absolutely. And also the society and what society expects from men and just that world but, even everywhere still in some ways, it’s absolutely about that.

Kenzie Vanunu: It’s obviously such a tragic story, but I walked away emotional about the bond of brothers and message of survival. Was this always your intent with telling the family’s story?
Sean Durkin: Yeah, I mean, you have to find it over the years, you know. So I had to look and discover that for sure. But it became the intent quite clearly, quite early on. Because, yeah, I didn’t want to make something about grief. It wasn’t to focus on the tragedy or the grief of anything, it was about the absence of grief, because I think this family suffered continually because of an almost refusal to grieve because of the place they came from, and how they were conditioned by their upbringing or their society to just move on. And I think that just moving on without dealing with it is what creates the repetition of events. And so I didn’t want the film to sit in the grief because they never sat in the grief, if anything, like I always felt it was going to be very much about like the glorious rise and the brotherly bond. And then you know, the rise and then the fall, but always ending with Kevin rising out of it, and having this wisdom in this new family and his relationship with Pam was always really interesting to me. So I really wanted the tragedy to just be one part of it, but really, you know, also as a wrestling fan, I’m coming out at looking to recreate what I feel is like the greatest time of wrestling, you know, so there’s also that so it was always gonna be celebratory and about brotherly love

Kenzie Vanunu: Something I noticed on a rewatch was as the film goes on, the wrestling scenes become shorter and less frequent. It almost felt as part of Kevin’s journey as he realizes where he matters most is outside of the ring. Was this the intention?
Sean Durkin: Yeah, I think the character of Kevin just doesn’t have the same drive. He just does it because he loves it. He’s good at it. But he doesn’t have the same drive for glory. And so he’s sort of having fun doing it. And then the more important things take over and wrestling becomes less important. And also as a film, it’s very like celebratory of wrestling, but then that falls apart as well. So it’s not really about wrestling. It’s not truly about wrestling. It’s about the drama of the family drama and the journey of Kevin’s survival. So that was also a choice to just have wrestling be less important as the film goes on.

Kenzie Vanunu: I love the use of music as a storytelling device in the film. From ‘The Reaper’ to ‘Tom Sawyer’ and even the original song, each song really foreshadows what is lurking, and builds tension. Can you talk about using music to tell this story?
Sean Durkin: Yeah. It was always my intention to use ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ and ‘Tom Sawyer.’ They’re just the right energy and era, you know, and obviously, I enjoy the literal foreshadowing of ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper.’ ‘Tom Sawyer’ was actually Kerry’s entrance music. So that was always a part of the plan to have that be used. But also, it’s the right energy for the moment and the height of that wrestling montage when the brothers are together. So and then the original song was always planned, but I didn’t know what it was going to be. But when I started working with my composer, when we were shooting, because Stanley [Simons] had to learn this song for Mike. I was talking to him about what it could be and told him what I was thinking songs like that for the film, and, and he was like, ‘Oh, I actually have this sort of Springsteen, Tom Petty, inspired song that we’d written,’ and so he sent it to me. And immediately I was just like, yes, this is it. It’s incredible. And it just has both the slightly melancholy but uplifting heart to it. And it just felt like the perfect thing. And then from there, we we really linked that to the score as well like some of the score is the broken down version of the original song. And then we played with this wanting to have this sort of original sort of rock bass score with the brothers, but then have this older, more classical, big orchestra Gothic score for some of the wrestling and some of the curse feel. And so it was blending those things, and how to make them all one soundscape.

Kenzie Vanunu: I love that. The music is great, as is the score. I was actually born and raised outside of Dallas, so I was very familiar with the story and the Von Erich family. 
Sean Durkin: Oh, really? That’s awesome.
Kenzie Vanunu: Yeah, I went to a huge wrestling school! And, the scene at UTD and then floating in the river. I was thinking this is my childhood like it really had me be back in time.
Sean Durkin: Aww.
Kenzie Vanunu: I was really shocked when I looked it up and you weren’t from there. Like I was completely blown away. I haven’t seen a movie feel this Texan in so long, like, I was really blown away by the small details.
Sean Durkin: Thank you!
Kenzie Vanunu: I’m actually going this weekend back to Dallas, and all of my friends are like, ‘We have to go see The Iron Claw,’ so the people of Dallas are really excited about the movie and I just wanted to congratulate you again just on how amazing it is what you pulled off.
Sean Durkin: Well, thank you. That means a lot. I spent a lot of time like someone not from Texas and I know both with wrestling and both with Texas like if you’re from Texas, or you’re a fan of wrestling, like those are two things like to be right, you will get taken down, you know and so I spent so much time like wanting to get those things right and that feel right even though I’m not from there and yeah, I had this amazing moment of the premiere where these like three young guys came up to me and they’re like you’re from Denton, that house party like that’s the party we used to have in Denton. I was like, sorry guys. We only spent one day in Denton.

Kenzie Vanunu: Oh, that’s so crazy. When they walked into that house party, I was like that was me sneaking out to UTD to go to house parties. Like I was like this is so weird. And then when I realized you are not from Texas, I was like what?
Sean Durkin: That’s so awesome, ha.

Kenzie Vanunu: But congratulations again on this film. It’s so incredible and I consider you three for three with features. It is just absolutely amazing, so congratulations and I’m really excited for everyone to see it!
Sean Durkin: Thank you, I really appreciate it.

The Iron Claw opens in theaters December 22, 2023.
You can find our review of the film here.