Russell Crowe shaken by Nazi role in 'Nuremberg'

Russell Crowe's nerve-shredding portrayal of a notorious Nazi on trial and Angelina Jolie's deeply personal dive into the world of French fashion led a busy past week of world premieres at the Toronto film festival.

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Crowe's depiction of the second-ranking Nazi, Hermann Goering, in "Nuremberg," as he plays a cat-and-mouse game with a psychiatrist (Rami Malek), drew an unusually lengthy standing ovation at North America's biggest movie fest.

The movie, out in theaters in November and based on Jack El-Hai's book "The Nazi and the Psychiatrist," depicts Goering as a charming, smart and wily prisoner, while not shying away from the colossal evil in which he played a pivotal role.

"You can't play a character like this and not walk away, at the end of the day, feeling things that maybe shake you about what went down," Crowe told journalists on the world premiere's red carpet.

Crowe speaks German in parts of the film, depicting how Goering believed he could use the post-World War II Nuremberg trials to justify his actions on a global stage.

The Oscar winner signed up just after reading the script, in which he could see Goering's "ambition bloom" and "how his egotism told him that he could control the narrative."