Russell Crowe shaken by Nazi role, Angelina Jolie reflects on family cancer history at TIFF

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 Sunday of world premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Sept. 7.

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TORONTO, Canada –

The New Zealand actor'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.

Based on American author Jack El-Hai's 2013 book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, it depicts Goering as a charming, smart and wily prisoner, while not shying away from the colossal evil in which he played a pivotal role.

Crowe, 61, told journalists on the red carpet: "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."

He 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 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."

The movie contains devastating archival footage of Nazi concentration camp victims being bulldozed into their graves – the same film reel that was shown in the real Nuremberg courtroom.