Maura Tierney Understands the Complexity of Bringing Dottie Von Erich to ‘The Iron Claw’
The Iron Claw is less about characters like Jack “Fritz” Von Erich and Dottie Von Erich and more about the love that their boys had for each other, but it wouldn’t work if those characters didn’t have a cold edge to them. That’s why Holt McCallany’s and Maura Tierney’s performances work so well.
Talking with Tierney about bringing a character like Dottie to life, she had a lot of opportunity to explore a woman like her because there isn’t as much information on the matriarch of the Von Erich family out there. When I asked her about playing a character that has a cold edge to her, who consistently tells her sons to just figure it out on their own and who lets her husband do whatever he wants to their boys, she talked about coming at her from the specific time period she was brought up in.
“I think this character comes from a very specific time and place, and it was the late ’60s/early ’70s, and she’s very religious, and I think that society at that time or her world sort of had a premium on being very stoic and that the man ran the household,” she said. “And so I think that is how she lived her life for a long time until, by the end of the film and at the end of their about 40 years of marriage or something, she ends up leaving him.”
That was interesting to learn because that’s not explored in the film, though we do see her grow distant with Jack. So we talked a bit about what she learned about Dottie in the process of filming The Iron Claw. “I’ll tell you the interesting part is that there’s not much to research,” she said. “There’s loads and loads and hours and hours of film on the boys and the boys wrestling. I understand this, of course, they were in the ring, and the dad. There’s very little archival information on the matriarch of this family, and she was their mother; she brought them into the world. So, there’s very little. There was very little for me to be able to find out. Basically, the role I played was the role that Sean Durkin wrote. The most interesting part of research was the lack thereof because it’s just, again, this was a real dude-centric family. So that was challenging.”
Highlighting how the boys needed each other
One of the best moments in the film that highlights how Kevin Von Erich (Zac Efron) was there and aware of what his brothers needed from his parents comes from Kevin going to his mother asking for help with Mike (Stanley Simons). When I asked about that scene in particular, she made it clear that she wasn’t sure if it was true but it “wouldn’t be surprising” if so. “I think he was the head of the family and she deferred to him for as long as she could.”
I went on to ask more about that dynamic between the boys and their parents because it is such a fascinating relationship—because while the boys struggled with their father, there was still a love and respect with their parents. They listened to both Jack and Dottie in the midst of how they were treated, so I asked how they managed to bring the family dynamic to life, bringing that care in without that loving, doting parent dynamic in the film.
“I think they all really loved both of their parents,” Tierney said. “I mean a lot. In a way that I was surprised. I would probably have resented a parent like that. In real life, the boys did. And these guys were super sweethearts. They were all really nice. A lot of the stuff was comedic. I don’t know if it reads in the movie, but they’d be like in the kitchen in their underwear or like teeny tiny shorts in a teeny tiny towel. It was just very goofy, a lot of it. So that was easy. And there was a ton of food always around. There was a lot of scenes like dinner or lunch or whatever. And so that sort of makes its own intimacy.”
One thing about the movie that I did instantly clock was the way it uses humor with the boys to lull you into this false sense of happiness with them. Tierney is right; it really does work:
That led us to talking about how it is balanced with the tragedy of this family. “Well, I thought that Zac did a great job,” Tierney said. “Sean (Durkin) really directed everybody to kind of not emote, the family’s very stoic. So then when you get to that scene in the end with Zac’s character, you’re like, ‘Oh my God, this is how sad he’s been. That they weren’t allowed to be sad.'”
The shell of a woman cracking
With a woman like Dottie, she is part of a family that is all about not showing emotions. It takes Kevin breaking at the end to show that he’s not going to continue the cycle, but it isn’t an easy thing to stop. The scene that really shows that Dottie isn’t completely immune to what is going on with her boys comes when she has to bury another son and she is complaining about her black dress. So I brought up her one moment of weakness.
“And she’s not even talking about what she is, which is the only time we see her be sad,” Tierney said. “That’s not what she’s caring about. She doesn’t really care about that. Anybody notices her dress. But she can’t even say my third son died. Even in her moment of vulnerability, she can’t even cop to it. She can’t even live in it.”
When I asked about playing a woman that is so sort of stunted in those emotions in that way, who isn’t necessarily cold but still not open in how she’s feeling, Tierney talked about how she approaches bringing that kind of woman to life. “She’s not cold, but she’s definitely not warm,” she said. “But I think what is not maybe entirely clear is she lost her first child when he was six years old, so when we first see that character, she’s already lost a son, which—I don’t know; I think that’s a lot what made her how she is. I feel like she experienced this tragedy of losing a very young child when she was very young and then set herself up to protect herself from that kind of pain and just get over it by moving forward, having more children, taking care of those children. So I think she was a lot about the household and that first loss. I think really that’s what my choice was as an actor. She’s not alive, and as I said, there’s not much to research. But I think having lost a child so young, the rest of her life was sort of a reaction to that. And then she just kept losing children with no way to process it—no way to process grief or express grief. So I felt sad for that character actually. But I usually play the warm person. So it’s nice for me to do something different.”
And when asked what the most rewarding aspect of a complex woman like Dottie is? Tierney said, “It was challenging. I think the whole project was challenging for me. I guess what’s rewarding, I think, is the movie’s gorgeous. I think it came out so beautifully. I think Sean, all the boys did an amazing job. So I feel very happy to be part of that product. But the process was hard. It was a little challenging because there wasn’t a lot to convey and very little material to convey it through. So it was hard. But I do think the movie came out beautifully.”
The Iron Claw is in theaters on December 22.
(featured image: A24)
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