Venice, Italy - Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was set to thunder into the Venice Film Festival on Monday, with the wrestler-actor appearing in a tailor-made role in Benny Safdie's latest movie The Smashing Machine.

The 53-year-old will be the star attraction at one of Europe's most prestigious film festivals, which promotes independent arthouse movies alongside a smattering of big-budget Hollywood dramas each year.

Johnson has been cast as a wrestler in the two-hour biopic opposite Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada), who plays his wife, for a movie that was enthusiastically hyped by Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera beforehand.

It tells the story of champion mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter Mark Kerr, "a beautiful and complicated person," according to Safdie.

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Elsewhere on Monday, Mona Fastvold, one half of the star writer-director couple behind Oscar-winning The Brutalist, will showcase her new movie The Testament of Ann Lee about the founder of the radical Shakers religious sect in the 1700s.

Packed with music and singing, the feature was co-written by Fastfold and partner Brady Corbet, who used Venice last year to launch The Brutalist, which went on to win three Oscars including Best Actor for Adrian Brody.

The Smashing Machine and The Testament of Ann Lee are among 21 films vying for the top Golden Lion prize at Venice, which will be handed out on Saturday.

Also at the festival on Monday, Hollywood actress Kim Novak (92) was to be presented with a lifetime achievement award.

The festival's artistic director, Alberto Barbera, has called Novak "one of the most beloved icons of an entire era of Hollywood films."

Novak played the chilling dual role of suicidal blonde Madeleine Elster and brunette shop girl Judy Barton in Vertigo, released in 1958.