Quaid Chokes up while watching the final scenes of his new movie

Emotional actor Dennis Quaid choked up while watching the final scenes of his new movie - in which his character holds up two healthy newborn twins.

He told how romantic comedy 'Smart People' - also starring Sarah Jessica Parker - was "life imitating art" at its Sundance Film Festival premier.

Quaid and his wife Kimberley were devastated when their newborn twins were given an overdose of blood thinner.

The tots have recovered now, but the sight of himself holding two healthy babies in the final scenes brought the pain flooding back for the doting dad.

"It actually really gets me when I see this. I'm a little verklempt," Quaid said onstage at the first screening this week.

"The character came to have hope for himself but in a sense it came true for me."

In a real-life near-tragedy, Quaid's own twins suffered the massive overdose of heparin at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, Los Angeles, in November. The couple have sued the drug-maker.

In the new flick, Quaid plays Lawrence Wetherhold, an English professor struggling to get over the death of his beloved wife.

He slowly finds happiness with a former student and ER doctor, played by Sex In The City star Sarah Jessica Parker, who treats him for a seizure.

By the conclusion, his character is the father of twins. "Kimberly and I weren't even pregnant when we shot the movie," he added.

"We'd been trying for three years. When I read the script a couple years ago, the end scene always got me emotionally.

"It made me well up. And of course having our own twins now, it really gets me verklempt.

"It's a wonderful thing. For me, it's just life imitating art."