Dwayne Johnson gets emotional over receiving surprising response for new film

Dwayne Johnson teared up after earning a 15-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival for his new movie The Smashing Machine.

For the first time in his acting career, the wrestler-turned-actor made his appearance at the annual film festival for the world premiere of his new biopic film, on Monday, September 1.

In the biographical film, Johnson, who is also known by his ring name The Rock, plays mixed martial arts legend Mark Kerr.

In a video posted by Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh on X (formerly Twitter), Rock can be seen wiping out his tears of joy and applauding as he and his castmates received the overwhelming response from the audience.

His costar, Emily Blunt, can also be seen cheering him up.

"Dwayne Johnson weeps during the 15-minute #Venezia2025 standing ovation for ‘The Smashing Machine,’" Ramin wrote in the caption.

"This was the most emotion we’ve since on the Lido since Brendan Fraser launched his Oscar campaign here four years ago for ‘The Whale,’" he noted.

The Smashing Machine is all set to hit theaters on October 3.

Elsewhere at the event, the wrestler-turned-actor talked about living his "dream" life after years of being pigeonholed in roles.

"I want to live my dreams now and do what I wanna do and tap into the stuff that I want to tap into and have a place finally to put all this stuff that I’ve experienced in the past that I’ve shied away from," he said at the Venice film festival.

"I’ve been scared to go deep and intense and raw until now, until I had this opportunity," Rock added.