How Holt McCallany transformed into a pro wrestler for “The Iron Claw”

The "Mindhunter" star plays imposing family patriarch Fritz Von Erich in A24’s emotional wrestling drama.

The Iron Claw is a family affair. Sean Durkin’s emotional A24 drama tells the story of the legendary Von Erich clan, a tight-knit Texas family who rose to fame as pro wrestlers in the 1970s and ‘80s, only to face personal tragedy outside of the ring. Much of the film focuses on the four Von Erich brothers — played on screen by Zac Efron, Harris Dickinson, Jeremy Allen White, and Stanley Simons — but it’s patriarch Fritz Von Erich who looms largest, played by Mindhunter star Holt McCallany.

The 60-year-old McCallany brings an imposing authority to the role, and his Fritz can be intimidating yet warm, a rigid taskmaster who publicly ranks his “favorite” sons but also lives to play football with them in the backyard. Fritz turned his family into global stars, but long before his sons stepped into the ring, he himself built a career as a pro wrestler, changing his name from Jack Adkisson to wrestle as a fictional Nazi heel named “Fritz Von Erich.” In the ring, Fritz used his menacing reputation to his advantage, and he soon popularized the “Iron Claw,” a signature move where he’d grasp an opponent’s face and clamp down with all five fingers.

Fritz never found the worldwide fame he coveted, but after he launched a second act as a promoter, he pushed his sons to follow in his footsteps. McCallany himself says he became a fan of professional wrestling as a kid growing up in Nebraska, but he wasn’t particularly familiar with the Texas-born Von Erichs. It wasn’t until he read Durkin’s script that he started diving into the family’s complicated history.

“There was nobody else that was quite like Fritz,” McCallany tells EW. “Although he had a lot of detractors, he also had a lot of admirers. What I found through my research and the people that I spoke to was that I came to see him as a family man who wanted success for his sons at all costs. If he pushed them a little too hard sometimes, it was from a place of love and a place of pride.”

Playing a professional wrestler also meant that McCallany had to get comfortable in the ring. Months before filming started, the actor began training at a Brooklyn gym with legendary wrestler Johnny Rodz, who actually knew the Von Erichs and had faced off against Kevin Von Erich (played in the film by Efron). At the gym, Rodz helped McCallany perfect everything from Fritz’s menacing glower to that signature Iron Claw.

“If you’re going to play a wrestler, the first thing you have to do is wrestle,” McCallany says with a laugh. “You have to get comfortable with it. And what you come to understand is that it’s much harder than it looks. It requires tremendous athleticism. It requires a huge amount of technique. You can only learn it by learning from someone who’s actually been in the ring and did it.”

McCallany still remembers his first meeting with Rodz, when he told the former pro that he would be playing Fritz Von Erich on screen. Rodz’s response? “You better get that smile off your face.”

“He said, ‘Fritz didn’t smile when he was in the ring. Fritz was a heel,’” McCallany remembers. “So, I would go four nights a week to Johnny Rodz’s wrestling club in Brooklyn. He would sometimes keep us there until 1 in the morning, and he would just throw wrestlers in front of me. He would even get in the ring with us sometimes, even though he’s 83.”

The Von Erich family has been well-documented over the years, and McCallany says he was particularly fascinated by Fritz’s single-minded drive for glory — whether it was his own or his sons’. For insight, he pored over documentaries, archival footage, and conversations with people like Rodz, who knew Fritz both inside and outside of the ring. Still, he says, he wishes he could have met with the real Fritz, who died in 1997, just so he could ask him questions about his relationship with his family.

“In the past, what I’ve discovered as an actor is that in 100 percent of the cases, the person almost always says yes,” he explains. “The only guy that ever refused to meet me with me was David Berkowitz, the son of Sam, the famous serial killer. But that’s why you can’t trust serial killers.”

The Iron Claw is in theaters now. 

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