Kristen Wiig shed tears over Matt Damon's Martian role

Kristen Wiig cried with laughter at Matt Damon's funny performance in The Martian.

The 45-year-old actor is in the running for a best actor Oscar thanks to his role as astronaut Mark Watney, who is stranded on Mars after his crew believe he died in a freak storm. His co-stars Kristen and Chiwetel Ejiofor are on hand to support their friend ahead of the ceremony on 28 February (16).

"Matt is unbelievable, and knowing he was going to do this when I read the script, you could kind of imagine what he would do, but it was just beyond anything I could have imagined," Kristen gushed to Popsugar Australia. "He was so funny, he made me cry. He's incredible."

Chiwetel continued the praise, adding: "It's really hard to imagine how difficult a part like Mark Watney is to play. To be in that level of isolation in a movie and to take an audience on all of these different emotions is just amazing. To take the audience on a journey and to be so personal and interesting; he just does that so effortlessly. He's just a really talented guy."

While there's no doubting Matt's talent and humour, The Martian has caused a stir due to the categories it fell into at this year's (16) Golden Globes. Matt scooped the Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical award at the ceremony on 10 January, and the movie won Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical too. Comedy director Judd Apatow's feature Trainwreck was also in the running for the latter, and he shared his annoyance at the situation during the Critics' Choice Awards on Sunday (17Jan16).

"I've got Matt Damon staring at me right now after that whole Golden Globe comedy thing," he joked. "We only have one award, Matt, that's all we get. I'm like a nerd on the school yard and you stole my milk money.

"Can we just pick whatever category we wanna be in? We have an Asian man in our movie, can I go Foreign Film now?"