Inside the ‘Iron Claw’ Hair Department—Where the Wigs Never Tapped Out

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.  

Eric Chakeen

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.’”