Zac Efron nearly bared all while filming The Iron Claw, and he didn’t quite know what to do with himself.
“One of the jarring moments that I wasn’t expecting was when the wrestling stops, or there’s a cut, or in between setups or takes — you’ve just got to stand there with a whole crowd around, in your underwear,” Efron, 36, told Metro on Wednesday, February 7. “And there’s nothing really going on.”
Efron, who gained 15 pounds of muscle for his role in the wrestling drama, noted that being nearly nude on camera was “a different kind of feeling” that he had “never experienced” before.
“You just kind of gotta … like, where do you put your hands? On your hips? You can’t help — there are people everywhere, you can’t look up and have somebody not looking back at you! So that was a bit unnatural,” he recalled.
In The Iron Claw, which is based on the real-life Von Erich family of pro wrestlers, Efron portrays Kevin Von Erich alongside Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson and Stanley Simons, who played brothers Kerry, David and Mike, respectively.
While Efron may have been feeling uncomfortable in his wrestling trunks, costume designer Jennifer Starzyk said the actor and his costars didn’t let it show on set.
“They all might say they kind of were reluctant, but truthfully, everybody came in looking amazing,” Starzyk exclusively told Us Weekly in January. “It wouldn’t matter if they didn’t look amazing anyhow. They’re such great actors, but I never got that sense [that they were nervous] at all.”
Starzyk also noted that the shorts were thicker than viewers may have originally thought.
“If you properly make the trunks, they’re triple-lined,” she explained. “They’re very thick and very comfortable. They have a drawstring on top of the elastic, so it’s made to perform. So, it’s not an issue there. Everybody just got used to it — and they were all dressed alike. It wasn’t like one guy was kind of naked and nobody else was.”
When Efron filmed his first wrestling match in character, Starzyk noted the room went “ballistic,” saying, “You would have thought it was really happening.”
She added, “That dynamic sense of electrified energy, everybody just was in. You were just, like, in it and really absorbed in the process.”
Efron’s performance also received praise from none other than Adele.
“Obviously there’s loads of great movies, but if you haven’t seen it, [The] Iron Claw was my favorite movie of the year,” Adele told concertgoers in January. “I was so blown away by Zac Efron in that movie and at the end, I cried for two hours.”
