A video shows Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wiping away tears during the 15-minute standing ovation that followed the premiere of his film The Smashing Machine at the Venice Film Festival.
Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh posted the video of an emotional Johnson on Monday (Sept. 1), comparing the moment to Brendan Fraser breaking down after the reception to his movie The Whale at the Venice Film Festival three years ago.
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Fraser’s performance in The Whale would eventually earn him an Academy Award for Best Actor. Even though Oscars voting is still a few months away, there appears to be some buzz surrounding Johnson’s portrayal of former wrestler and mixed martial artist Mark Kerr.
Aside from the physical transformation in The Smashing Machine, Johnson credited the film with addressing a “burning desire” to dive deeper into a role than he has before.
“I looked around a few years ago and I started to think, you know, am I living my dream or am I living other people’s dreams?” he said in a recent press conference. “I’ve been scared to go deep and intense and raw until now, until I had this opportunity.”
In his review of The Smashing Machine, Deadline awards film editor Damon Wise applauded Johnson for doing what he set out to do.
“Dwayne Johnson owns the whole thing with his truly remarkable work as fighter Mark Kerr, disappearing so fully underneath Kazu Hiru’s astonishing prosthetics that the opening of the film, presented as contemporary footage from an event in Sao Paulo 1997, looks genuinely like the real thing,” Wise wrote.
Little White Lies contributor Hannah Strong wrote in her review of the film that the 53-year-old actor gives an “impressive performance,” and suggested he and the film’s director, Benny Safdie, “certainly make a compelling case” for his Oscar nomination.
After spending over a decade directing alongside his brother Josh on films, like Uncut Gems and Good Times, Safdie is making his solo debut with The Smashing Machine. Even Safdie became overcome with emotions amid the 15-minute standing ovation to the film that he also wrote alone.
The Smashing Machine, which also stars Emily Blunt, will be in theaters on Oct. 3.
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