They love him. They really love him.

Brendan Fraser was in tears as credits rolled on his new film The Whale. The film received a six minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival from an enthusiastic crowd. The actor stands a good chance at receiving a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role as a 600 pound gay man confined to a wheelchair.

Fraser hugged director Darren Aronofsky several times during the applause, which only increased as he attempted to leave the stage, prompting him to take a bow.

Though Fraser wore prosthetics to acheive the look of a 600 pound man, wearing the 50 to 300 pound prosthetic suit required great physical effort. Fraser said in a pre-festival interview that the apparatus was “cumbersome, not exactly comfortable,” adding, “The torso piece was almost like a strait jacket with sleeves that went on, airbrushed by hand, to look identical as would human skin, right down to the hand-punched hair.”

“I even felt a sense of vertigo at the end of the day when all the appliances were removed,” he continued. “It was like stepping off the dock onto a boat in Venice. That [sense of] undulating. It gave me appreciation for those whose bodies are similar. You need to be an incredibly strong person, mentally and physically, to inhabit that physical being.”

Although Fraser had a supporting role in Steven Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move last year, The Whale is his first starring role in a film since 2013’s direct-to-DVD action movie Breakout. Fraser will soon be seen in Martin Scorsese’s Apple western Killers of the Flower Moon. His turn as Garfield Lynns/Firefly in the HBO Max original Batgirl will not be seen as Warner Bros. canceled the film’s release.

Aronofsky has a long history with the prestigious festival. His first Venice was with the premiere of The Fountain, and though that didn’t wow, he was back in 2008 with The Wrestler which won the Golden Lion. Black Swan was one of the big hits of the 2010 Venice Film Festival (and won Mila Kunis an emerging actor prize), while mother! was the buzz of the 2017 festival.

The Whale hits theaters in the US on December 9th.