Faithspotting "The Iron Claw"

Mike Hatch

All right. And as I'm sure everybody's been waiting for or at least most people, here's the interview with Sean Durkin, that Kenny and I did.

So we have with us. Writer and director of The Iron Claw, Sean Durkin. So Sean, again, thank you so much for taking the time to be. With us today,

Sean Durkin

Thanks for having me.

Mike Hatch

So, man, I gotta tell you. Kenny and I went to the world premiere here in Dallas at Texas Theater. One of the things that I loved about the film was it seems like it's a small thing, but I don't see it happening in these days of Marvel films going 1,000,000 mph is the fact that this film was directed and paced in a way and even written in a way that it allowed you to breathe in what was happening. So much of what happens in our life is going so quickly and even though I couldn't directly relate to a lot of what was happening because it was so tragic, you allowed the film to breathe and I want to thank you for that because it's something that not a lot of directors get. It's one of those things that's almost subliminal, and I was wondering if was that something that you were going for.

Sean Durkin

No thanks for noticing it. It is.  It's funny. In some ways. I feel like it's almost becoming a lost part of filmmaking about where you can actually, it's much more exciting and more impactful to sit and process something that's just happened instead of sort of move through it quickly and get to the next thing. Because sometimes there's an association, like faster is better and more exciting, but actually it's not. It's just about being engaged. It's just about being pulled in. So I'm always thinking about what's the best way to sort of mesmerize an audience, pull them in, like get them sucked into the story. Yeah. And take on the the journey, whatever that journey may be.

Mike Hatch

That was so cool to me that. What I call the movies is you have your Hostess Cupcake movie where it's just like you walk out of the theater like, oh, that was yummy. That was tasty. That was good. There's nothing wrong with that, or a popcorn movie. But then you have ones like yours where you sit down and. When I call it like a good Del Frisco's dinner, you know you, you're there and you have the first, you know, you walk out of the theater and you reflect on it as well as being able to reflect on it in the theater. But I hate to be stereotypical of 824 films, but I see that happening all the time, that that's something that they keep. It's like it's like the lost art that they're holding on to that.

Sean Durkin

I think they really support their film makers to make the films they want to make and that's, I think that that's really where where it lies.

Kenny Dickson

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I. So I grew up in Dallas. I grew up watching Fritz back in black and white TV's when they tell telecast from Fort Worth, I went to the Sportatorium once or twice when I heard about this coming out, I said this could be either really bad or really great. And then I heard it was going to be an A/24 film. And then I heard who all was attached, including you and the cast. And I sort of breathed a sigh of relief as I was a Von Erich fan from my childhood.

I read that you're a professional wrestling fan and sort of have been from your time in England, wanted to do this story. I think as I read that you had kept up with the Von Erichs. Then, through wrestling magazines, also heard you like you want to make films about things that maybe scare you a little bit or bring some sense of have of a fear that you may have. So I'm wondering, did both of those come together here or was it one more than the other?

Sean Durkin

The great question. You know the fear thing is interesting because I I've thought about that in terms of my other work, but I haven't really thought about that question  in awhile and I hadn't really looked at it here, but I guess on a personal level I think maybe in some ways you know the the curse that is portrayed. This is something that maybe scares me because one of the things that really. Dream of the family was that  I remember where I was when I found out that Kerry had died. And I read about it in a magazine, and I had seen him live a couple times in WWF. And it really, really saddened me and stayed with me and and a part of that was in my dad's brother had just died, and I didn't know my dad's brother and. And I think I saw some similarities between my dad's family and the Von Erich family, even though they're from very different places.

There's a similar structure. My dad was one of six brothers, very tough father, and a lot of bad things happen in that family and and so maybe in some ways. You know, how like looking how we end that generational trauma, how we change those patterns of the parents that came before us and and do things differently and try to give our kids better lives than they had and that you know something I actively saw my dad do with me. You know, he broke a lot of the things that had happened in his family and. And I think in terms of fear, maybe, yeah, maybe it's some of that was like. OK. Cause I don't believe in curses, but I do believe that if a lot of bad things. Have happened in your family, when something bad happens to. You start to think psychologically. Perhaps it can keep going, right? It can happen again. It can happen to you. So maybe yeah, maybe that was. A part of it.

Kenny Dickson

Yeah, that's the fear in in house say Fritz responded to the and his wife to the death of their first son. If that sort of set the narrative that resulted in the pressure that resulted in, you know, some of the other deaths and tragedy and the the fear of trying not to let that continue.

Mike Hatch

I love the ongoing theme of family in your films. You know, even The Nest and you're talking about detail and attention to detail because I'm I'm an 80s kid. I loved how the daughter got up when she heard a song that she loved and she hit record. And she recorded it from the radio. I'm an I'm an ex DJ used to be in radio for. 30 years I used to do that when I was a kid all the time. It was just like small details like that that I think that's a lost art.

Sean Durkin

It was the only way I could listen to music. I had a blank tape and I taped stuff off the radio. And then I played it back in my Walkman.

Mike Hatch

Me too, man.

Sean Durkin

Know I only had three Tapes and and then and then a blank one. It was just that was that was the only way.

Mike Hatch

That's all you could afford. You know, these days, I mean. And. And I always feel so old because I'm. I'm a high school teacher. I teach radio, television and film. And I'll say to my kids, you guys have no idea how amazing it is that, you know, you think of a song and you just bring it up on your phone. I said back in my day, you know, you wanted information, you had to go to the library, you wanted to hear a song, you had to go and record it off the radio. And they are Like radio, What do you mean?

Sean Durkin

Yeah. And even the way I found the von Ericks and spend time learning with this feeling like I, you know, I I had to. I was 8 years old, living in England like I had to dig for it. Like I saw, you know, I had to. I found an old VHS tape. I saw them on it. And then I wanted more. And then I got back ordered, you know, issues of Pro Wrestling Illustrated to read about matches that were. Never even recorded, you know, and so. You know, it was. It was a very old-fashioned deep dive research for me. As a kid.

Kenny Dickson

You literally took me back to my youth. When you had that one little bitty shot of Kerry, when it's against Ric Flair in Texas Stadium and you had him going out and it just showed the scoreboard and the Frito Lay sign. You had the colors exactly. I went to 10 year or 20 years of games there and you had the exact color. I was just like, Oh my gosh.

Sean Durkin

That's awesome. I mean that's, that's the kind of stuff that really matters to me and, you know, being someone who's not from Dallas, but I know how meaningful this to the community. I know how meaningful it was to people who were there, and I think getting those things right, like I really take the time to get those things right. And one of the best compliments I've gotten and honestly of every of everything. These are the kinds of things I hold in the highest regard. There's like 3 guys in there like early 20s ran up to me after the premiere and they said, Like you're from Denton. I was like. No, I'm. I'm not from Denton. They're like, yeah, but that house party, like, that's the Denton House party. You know what? It's also like an upstate New York House party. But I did my research.

Mike Hatch

This is a question I always love to throw folks. Almost every interview, you know, what's your favorite movie? But and by the way, I came up with this question before Netflix ever did, so I'm taking complete credit. This that a movie that is not even necessarily your favorite movie, but a movie that helped make you who you are, either as a human being, a person, a filmmaker. For me it was Jaws because I grew up in New Hampshire, we would go and, you know, go out to Martha's Vineyard and my brother and my dad would go fishing. Mom and I would go around to all the locations where they filmed Jaws, so I have that memory, but also being a New Englander and and knowing how much Spielberg nailed every single character in that movie. So that's part of who I am. How about you?

Sean Durkin

That’s a great question and to put it in those terms is great too, cause it's like you know, I know what sort of my favorite films are. I know the films that influence this film, but in those terms, I mean. I mean, I guess you know, if I if I had to, it's if I had to go to like the purest form of that I it would, it would be a toss up between Back to the Future and The Goonies. And I think I would go Goonies because.

Mike Hatch

My, my, my media room right now, yes. Goonies. OK. Love it.

Sean Durkin

I think I like The Goonies because of the landscape. It's interesting. Like I was born on Vancouver Island but moved away from there when I was maybe two years old and didn't go back until I was in my 30s. But I almost remembered it on a like a sensory level, you know, I also I almost remember like what it felt like to be in the Pacific Northwest and. And there was something about watching the Goonies as a kid, where I just, like, dreamed up the Pacific Northwest. I think. I guess knowing I was from there and had left or, you know, but just that place, that sense of place. And then the and then the camaraderie between the friends. And it's interesting to think about this, you know, this brotherhood in this movie, but how my own experience of brotherhood is very much connected to my friends, this group of friends that I have and came up with. And we're still very tight. So I think that sense of adventure. That storytelling, that mystery. And you know that’s sort of funny. There's a group of guys sort of like looking for justice, you know, looking for, looking to save their family. It's very new.

Mike Hatch

The patellies.

Sean Durkin

Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's got, I. Think it's just got such a yeah, and just made such a huge impact on me.

Mike Hatch

I feel very, very close to, well there. There's always been talk of doing Goonies too, man, so I I think you could direct. It I'm, I'm.

Mike Hatch

You do that get chunk and data and everybody else in there, man. That you're right. I love that movie. I even had, like, there's a friend of mine and I, we put together a Goonies. Membership card. We drew it out in art, so we we were obsessed with that film, so I know exactly where you're coming from. Such a great movie.

Kenny Dickson

I think we had somebody else say back to the future too, didn't we? Ed Sonoda, I think maybe he had.

Mike Hatch

Yeah, it was. That's no, that's right.

Kenny Dickson

Yeah, prominent film for filmmakers. I just wanted to say, you know, I really appreciated the dream sequence, the dream scene. And I understand that Kevin really had a dream. And was it that basically the dream he had or?

Sean Durkin

Well, he never told me about that.

Kenny Dickson

No, he didn't. Ohh wow.

Sean Durkin

Yeah. Yeah, it was.

Kenny Dickson

I read about an article that he didn't tell till relatively recently that he had had a dream about meeting his siblings. I just thought that was amazing and the way you handled it was was so, so well done.

Sean Durkin

Thanks. There's been a few things like that where I think there's something that happens in the movie that I didn't know about that maybe like connected to something. I mean, Kevin's just been so kind and and loving. And his response to the film and yeah, but that that scene. I think it you know it. Really came. I think it started from. Kerry’s suicide note. It's hard to remember now, And it was in the script early and I and I felt like I I wanted to, you know, I wanted to take the phone out of just naturalism. I I feel like in the both in this sort of mythical storytelling of wrestling and the kind of Greek tragedy structure of the story itself. I felt like there was room to do that. I also felt. Yeah, there's one, you know, carries actual suicide note, which is in the film about walking with his brothers. We perhaps wanted to honor that in some way. We wanted to visualize that in some way, and I just wanted to see them together in in this very pure, tender moment that where they could sort of embrace in gentle ways that maybe they couldn't quite in real life. And yeah, it just yeah, it was important to me.

Kenny Dickson

It set up a great parallel to the I think it's the very beginning of the film, and certainly the trailer where you talk about. You know, in the in the midst of the curse, Mom thought tried to protect us with God, and Dad tried to protect us or Pop tried to protect us with strength and toughness and wrestling. And so for them the squared circle was their place where they thought they could be protected and in reality it was the the Bank of that dream and and God. That was able to offer them that ultimate protection.

Mike Hatch

We really, really appreciate your time there, man. Thank you so much. And and Sean, I really hope you have a great holiday season and you're going to take some time to relax in the midst of all of the chaos that's going on.

Sean Durkin

Thank you, guys. Really nice speaking to you.