Zac Efron & his ‘Iron Claw’ co-stars shaved their (entire) bodies together and “it was incredible”

Nothing better to bring your buff male cast closer together than a group shave, eh?

Mark

Dec 2, 2023 - 19:00

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Zac Efron & his ‘Iron Claw’ co-stars shaved their (entire) bodies together and “it was incredible”

Throughout the press tour for their upcoming wrestling biopic The Iron Claw, stars Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, and Harris Dickinson have had an iron grip on our throats—and it looks like they’re not letting up any time soon.

Not to be outdone by Jacob Elordi and Barry Keoghan’s Saltburn bromance, or Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott’s electric chemistry on the promo trail for All Of Us Strangers, the boys of The Iron Claw are—perhaps intentionally—ramping up the homoeroticism in anticipation of their new movie.

This week, at a reception for the film in Hollywood, Variety‘s Marc Malkin got some behind-the-scenes tea from the trio that has our head’s spinning.

By now, we’ve heard a lot about how Efron, White, and Dickinson had to seriously bulk up to play the Von Erichs, brothers who dominated the wrestling scene in the ’80s before their stories turned tragic.

But there was one other crucial step for them to get into character: the full body shave—and it sounds like the co-stars were more than happy to help each other out with that!

“Our bodies had to be completely shaved,” White recalls of the cast’s first wardrobe fittings and camera tests. “We were strangers at the time. Now I know them and love them, but at the time, it was like, ‘Hi, nice to meet you and yes, they’re shaving off all of our body hair.’”

“They shaved everything,” Dickinson adds, sending the mind wandering.

White describes the group shave experience as “incredible,” which we don’t doubt! Seriously, what’s better than getting three buff dudes together and lathering each other up in shaving cream? Just bros being bros!

From Martha Marcy May Marlene director Sean Durkin, The Iron Claw has been praised as a tender and harrowing tribute to the Von Erichs, one that’s not afraid to depict their highest of eyes and lowest of lows, leaving it all on the screen.

And we do mean all. Reflecting on the costuming, White tells Variety that there was no such thing as “too revealing”:

“It was always smaller, always shorter,” the Emmy-nominated The Bear stars says. “It was never, ‘Cover up their skin!’ I don’t think any of us were confident in those first fittings. We were like, ‘We have a lot of work to do.'”

Of course, it seems like it all paid off.

In the first trailer and images for the film, the guys look totally ’80s—and totally jacked—as the larger-the-life athletes. White says he put on 25 pounds of muscle to play Kerry “The Texas Tornado” Von Erich, while Dickinson—who identifies as “a pretty skinny dude”—was downing 3,000 calories a day to beef up to play his older brother, David “The Yellow Rose of Texas” Von Erich.

But they both felt small next to Efron, whose Hulk-like transformation already has folks buzzing about what might be the defining performance of his career.

“I joke about it but it’s true, I didn’t want to stand close to [Efron] while shooting the movie because it would make me look my size,” White reveals. “But it’s hard because we play brothers. I do have to be around him. Although I tried to make Harris stand next to him most of the time”—and that’s exactly something real brothers would do.

Anticipation is high for The Iron Claw, which hits theaters everywhere on December 22, but at this point we might be even more excited for the behind-the-scenes videos!