Oscars 2024: Why was Zac Efron snubbed for ‘Best Actor’?
There is a devastating moment in the final act of The Iron Claw where Zac Efron, in his role as Kevin Von Erich, watches his children play and begins to cry. After a film packed with upset and tragedy, the emotional catharsis comes in this unassuming scene as he delivers the gut-wrenching line, “I used to be a brother, and now I’m not a brother anymore.”
This small moment holds so much power. As his children run over, Von Erich tries to hide his tears that are finally flowing, saying, “I’m sorry, boys. You shouldn’t see me like this. A man doesn’t cry.” When the sons responded, “Everyone cries,” there wasn’t a dry eye. As the climax to a movie about toxic masculinity and generational trauma passed down from emotionally repressed, tough father to emotionally damaged, helpless sons, this final moment feels like the possibility of the curse lifting.
The Von Erich story is devastating. As the sons of a wrestler, one by one, the family shrunk as suicide ripped through the brothers. In a situation where their role as high-level athletes, or strong, successful men, was forced upon them regardless of their mental state or other life goals, their father, Fritz Von Erich, tried to play out his dreams with his son’s life in a way utterly blind to care. As a movie about their lives, The Iron Claw has emotional drama like Past Lives or Anatomy of a Fall, it has epic, cinematic scale like Oppenheimer, characters to care about and love like Barbie and an important social commentary like American Fiction. So why didn’t it receive any Oscars recognition whatsoever?
Despite the haircuts, all of the leads in The Iron Claw put in career-best performances. The brothers, played by Jeremy Allan White, Harris Dickinson, Stanley Simons and Zac Efron, are a magical on-screen group that will make your heart swell and then be ripped to shreds. But Efron, especially, feels like a revelation.
Leading the pack as the central fixture, Kevin Von Erich is the brother tasked with trying to break the cycle of abuse and trauma and build a life free from it. He is let down time and time again by his father, forced to helplessly watch his brothers go to ruin, all while grappling with the emotional suppression he was raised with as he’s told to not cry at their funerals and simply get back on with trying to become a success rather than dealing with what is going on. By the end, he is the only one who can stand up to his father after all his brothers have gone, leading to a gripping confrontation scene that pulses with rage and upset like the headache you get after crying. Just as Efron transformed his body for the role, it’s as though he disappears inside Kevin Von Erich, allowing the actor the world thinks they know to become a vessel for sheer pain in this crushing and complex figure.
In short, Zac Efron put in a performance of a lifetime. Despite breaking out over a decade ago, The Iron Claw feels like an introduction to Efron as a genuine, serious and mature actor able to convey huge, emotional roles. Rivalling, if not beating, the performances from Cillian Murphy, Bradley Cooper and the others nominated for ‘Best Actor’, it is a depiction that utterly deserves recognition if not the accolade itself.
It is hard to can’t understand why he didn’t make the list. Perhaps it’s a case of the Academy refusing to see the woods for the trees. Just as Lana Del Rey is still snubbed at the Grammys based on decades-old performances, it seems that Efron may still be tarnished by his Disney reputation. In cultural conversation, he seems doomed to always be High School Musical’s Troy Bolton or some other shallow, heartthrob figure. Despite trying before to break into a more serious sphere, like when he took on the role of Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, it’s almost as if the world won’t grant him the grace of outgrowing his old reputation to be seen as an actor, rather than just public figure. Perhaps it’s another case of the Disney curse in which its stars will never be able to escape those childhood roles that made them.
Or perhaps blame lies at the feet of A24. The Iron Claw never seemed to get the marketing push that other features from the production company have, or other projects by Efron’s co-stars like White or Dickinson receive. The film came out with little fanfare, and when teasers were shared, they seemed to use more clips of silly or lighthearted moments, ignoring the movie’s depth and drama. The promotion in no way highlighted how powerful anyone’s performance was, but especially not Efron’s. Instead, they did a tired lean into the hunkiness of the actors as they got them playing with puppies or just posing for photo ops, worsening the perception of Efron as just a pretty fact.
But his role in The Iron Claw isn’t pretty at all. Sure, Efron will always be a handsome man, but his depiction of Von Erich is stark, dark and devastating. It’s an unfaltering glare at the damage masculinity can do and the way families can pass down pain. It’s a gut-wrenching look at the result of bottling things up and being stuck desperately trying to prove a figure that doesn’t have the emotional capacity to support you or even bolster you in any way but will taint your life with their expectation. While the biographical story of the family is dramatic and sad enough to make a gripping film, Zac Efron makes it a great out as he puts in a performance that deserves awards or at least acknowledgement that he is a serious actor with real talent.
