One of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)’s biggest early bows of the festival was Friday’s world premiere of Unstoppable, the sports biopic starring Jharrel Jerome, with a key supporting performance by Jennifer Lopez, and an ensemble that also includes Bobby Cannavale, Don Cheadle and Michael Peña.

Following the film’s premiere screening at Roy Thomason Hall, a warm standing ovation was given to the film and its cast, particularly inspired by the presence of the real-life Anthony Robles and his mother, Judy Robles, who Jerome and Lopez portray in the film. The film is directed by William Goldenberg, the much acclaimed and Oscar-winning film editor, who makes his feature directorial debut with the film.

Jerome, as should be expected, is fantastic in the film as he portrays Robles, a college wrestler who achieved over insurmountable odds. Though he was born without one of his legs, he was able to excel at wrestling and earned the 2010-2011 NCAA wrestling title. He also broke Guinness world record for post pull-ups in a minute in 2019. Unstoppable is based on Robles’ book, Unstoppable: From Underdog to Undefeated: How I Became A Champion. Robles himself also appears in the film as a double for Jerome.

Jerome takes on Robles’ true-story with ease, including his trials outside of wrestling: family issues and an abusive stepfather.

Jharrel Jerome on playing Anthony Robles in Unstoppable

At the film’s premiere, Jerome joked on-stage about how he only wanted to play real-life people, as he won an Emmy and is critically-acclaimed for his role as Korey Wise in the Netflix limited series, When They See Us. He spoke about this more in an interview with Blavity’s Shadow and Act shortly following the premiere.

“I’ve just been so blessed that these men have such incredible stories,” he explained. “So, the story is most important. You can go make up a story all day. You can talk about a frog fighting a tiger…stories are incredible. But real-life stories are different. Real-life stories are what people can really hang onto and relate to and see that us as humans, there’s so many of us and there’s so many different stories and struggles.”

“So, there’s that aspect, then there’s an aspect as an actor that it’s exciting to have almost like a guidebook when you’re approaching any character,” he continued. “At least for me, I’m big on notes. I’m big on dissecting what ifs and who’s and backstories and all of that. And when you’re making it up, it’s fun. There’s an exciting part to it. But when you have it right there on a YouTube page or a Wikipedia page or in a book, this is information, endless information. And so the work, not that it becomes easier, it just becomes a bit more focused and centered and it’s a different type of acting almost. It’s less imagination. You can’t mess up I’m a Virgo. I’m playing Cootie… I could do whatever the hell I want. It’s not a real guy. This is somebody real. And so the pressure becomes a challenge. And me, as you could see from just my career, I love a challenge and I love just pushing that sort of needle.”

He also spoke about playing a real-life person who is iconic and very known within a certain community, but for the first time, wider audiences will get to know him for the first time.

“Well, there’s two audiences,” he said. “I’m very excited to bring it to the wider audience for sure, because his story is so unique beyond wrestling. It’s not just about what he does on the mat, it’s the strength he has off the mat. He’s wrestling the whole movie. Every scene’s a wrestling scene, whether it’s wrestling an opponent, or wrestling his own emotions, or wrestling things going on around him. The way he’s so in control of his body [and] the way he’s so in control of his emotions, it’s a story that you can sit back and be like, ‘Hey, that’s me. I could see a little bit of me in that.’ Regardless if you have both your legs, it’s not about that. It’s also not about him just having one leg.”

Jerome continued, “I’m also excited to bring this to the wrestling community. Man, we don’t know him, but I’ll tell you what, that man is one of the most famous figures in the wrestling community. I was with him in Arizona, people stopping him in the street, kids taking pictures with him, people at restaurants… he’s very revered and respected in his sport. And so that pressure was real for me. That pressure was really real for me. Even though for us, it’s a new story for somebody who was not in the wrestling world, it was almost like I was playing Rocky for some people. And so that pressure is real that exists. I wanted to make sure that I got that wrestling tight, I got those movements right, fluid, natural–because the worst thing is watching a movie about a passion you love, and they’re just butchering it left. So for the wrestling community, which is a large, large community in this country, I think we put in a lot of work to make it as authentic as possible. So by the end, you’re like, ‘Bro, that was some wrestling.'”

Unstoppable is set to be released in the coming months by Amazon MGM Studios.