Jake Gyllenhaal shows off his perfect stubble on the red carpet for Nightcrawler

Well, this stupid jerk weather wasn’t enough to scare Jake Gyllenhaal fans, all of whom presumably love him for Zodiac’s powerfully unresolved ending and not his intoxicating doe eyes. Yesterday, hundreds of them were gathered outside the historic Elgin Theatre, where the actor’s new film Nightcrawler was premiering. The film casts Gyllenhaal as a petty thief who finds himself drawn into the world of sleazy underground journalism and crime reporting. That Nightcrawler seems like a tacit critique of the whole yellow journalism sub-industry didn’t stop its star, hair closely cropped and face gilded in the sort of perfected stubble that makes us (that is, literally all of us) weak in the knees, from sportingly posing for red carpet shutterbugs before hustling inside for his big bow. Also in attendance, Rene Russo—remember her? From Freejack?—who plays an unscrupulous TV producer in the film. But stars are all well and good. For our money, it’s all about crowd banter. Like the older guy in a blue Polo shirt who basically summed up the whole experience of TIFF red carpet clamor in this nifty thesis statement: “Well, people stand here, then someone people have heard of walks by and then the people yell. Because that’s what people do.”