When the striking first image from director Sean Durkin’s professional-wrestling family drama The Iron Claw hit the internet in July, two things immediately popped: the muscles and the hair.
Hair department head Natalie Shea Rose was responsible for the latter on the film, based on the tragic true story of the Von Erich family of pro wrestlers, who became sensations in the 1980s.
Accuracy to the real-life Von Erichs was the lodestar, says Rose, who frequently consulted archival photos, documentaries, and match footage. Wigs were custom-made for actors Zac Efron and Harris Dickinson, while Jeremy Allen White’s already considerable locks got keratin-bond extensions, which mimic the look, feel, and movement of natural hair.
Although to 21st-century eyes their ’80s hair appears over-the-top, the Von Erichs’ looks were actually all-natural. “None of them ever permed their hair or anything,” she told Vogue via video call from her home in New Orleans. “They grew up in the country near Dallas, literally on a ranch.”
David Von Erich (played by Dickinson), for example, had fairly red hair, but in some photos it appeared more sun-bleached blonde—which Rose recognized as someone who also grew up on a Texas ranch and saw her dark hair become blonde in the harsh sun every summer. “It was just that natural blonde, not something you bleached in.”
Rose, who’s worked in hair and makeup for the past decade in TV and on films like Logan and Green Book, was a fan of professional wrestling growing up, especially The Hulk. “Hulkamania took me by storm,” she laughs. “My brother and I started wrestling around, and we got a little too rowdy. My parents were like, ‘Maybe stop watching wrestling every night.’”
She was compelled by the storytelling aspect of pro wrestling, likening it to theater—which she happens to have a degree in. She worked at the Houston Ballet and Houston Grand Opera for several years, which gave her crucial experience in keeping wigs on heads. “At the ballet, they were partner dancing, so that wig could catch on the costumes,” she recalls. “That happened one night, and the wig wouldn’t come off! There’s an intricate way to pin everything so that if something happens, the pins won’t go into the scalp.”
That expertise was key for making the extremely delicate wigs survive the tough weeks-long Iron Claw shoot, enduring wrestling scenes soaked with real and fake sweat up to 12 minutes long. To evoke how a match really feels, Durkin often repeatedly shot entire wrestling matches without stopping, some as many as 15 times, making the shoot even more grueling than the real thing. Not to mention the family’s signature titular move involved gripping an opponent’s dome. But thanks to Rose’s skillful pinning, the wigs remained firmly in place throughout. “The guys have said that they have no idea how the suckers stayed on,” she laughs.
The biggest challenge was the sheer number of wigs Rose had to manage—sometimes as many as 15 wigs for a single scene, between the brothers, their opponents, and stunt doubles. And each wrestler in the film was based on a pro wrestler of that time, most of whom are still competing, so Rose keenly felt the pressure of veracity. “Their fan bases know exactly what the icons we’re portraying look like, and the real wrestlers [on set] were like, ‘This guy’s my hero,’” she recalls. “You had to keep everybody happy, and everybody was checking me.” The highest compliment came from Kevin Von Erich’s family, who, when visiting the set, remarked how similar Efron’s hair was to their father’s.
The actors also have praised the wigs for helping them get into character. “A wig is a very personal thing,” Rose observes. “All of them surprisingly loved wearing their wigs. Usually guys are like, ‘I hate this thing. It’s hot, it itches.’ These guys were like, ‘I hate taking it off!’”
