If you’ve been wondering whatClark Duke(Kick-Ass)has been up to since his feature directorial debut withArkansas, the actor-turned-filmmaker has been busy with several promising projects, one of which is his latest,Stranglehold. The comedy thriller, inspired bythe Coen Brothers, has wrapped production but has no release date yet. However, the feature’s stellar cast list was revealed not long ago, includingAshley Benson(Pretty Little Liars),Jake Lacy(The White Lotus),Justin Long(Barbarian),Ron Perlman(The Instigators), andRyan Nemeth(The Iron Claw).
In anticipation of the upcoming film, Nemeth, the professional wrestler slash actor, recently teased what’s to come via an interview withComicBook, during which he compared the project to theCoen Brothers’Fargo. He said:
“It’s about semi-organized crime and not very well-organized crime. It’s a small-town kind of people deciding, ‘Hey, we’re going to pull a heist.’ They’re not experts on robbing anything or anything like that, and that’s where the humor comes in. We think we are defending the local strip club from a military attack. I would say the word gritty applies, and I think the similarity betweenCoen Brothersfilms likeFargois probably a great example.”
The TNA champ did not stop there but shared more details about the process involved in bringingStrangleholdto life, particularly with the characters’ dialect. “It’s such a departure from what I usually do,” he explained. “We had a dialect coach helping us with the Arkansas accent, and we would just talk like that [for] days on end. It never felt like I was doing a character. If you think you know Ryan Nemeth, this will be a shocker to you.”
‘Stranglehold’ Will Include Unexpected Plot Twists
Created and co-written byDuke,Strangleholdmay turn out to be one of Nemeth’s best projects, which he admitted to co-star Perlman; however, it all depends on “post-production, editing and all that.” Furthermore, the actor would have loved to portray a standout character, butChris Candy, the son of the lateJohn Candy, supposedly assumes that role as Nemeth shared, “I would love it to be me, but my guess is that the character Chris Candy plays will be. That was kind of happening on set as we started shooting. You think you know how it’s going to play out, and then when the characters do start to come to life, you just go, ‘Oh my God, this is not what we expected,’ but in a great way.”
No arrival date has been announced yet forStranglehold. Stay tuned to Collider for future news about the exciting project. In the meantime, check out Nemeth’s most recent feature in A24’sThe Iron Clawon HBO Max.
The Iron Claw
The true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothers, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. Through tragedy and triumph, under the shadow of their domineering father and coach, the brothers seek larger-than-life immortality on the biggest stage in sports.
