--- title: Harry Potter Star Daniel Radcliffe Surprises Fans At What If Screening description: The 'Harry Potter' star showed up at a screening of his new movie 'What If' canonical: https://time.com/3113124/daniel-radcliffe-surprises-fans-at-movie-theater-screening/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-14T21:41:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:12:28.420Z og:title: Watch Daniel Radcliffe Fans Freak Out When He Surprises Them After a Movie Screening og:description: You'd think they just saw a dementor or something og:url: https://time.com/3113124/daniel-radcliffe-surprises-fans-at-movie-theater-screening/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3001f5a94f570ca0/69869d461eebf73cf9372039/daniel-radcliffe-harry-potter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2938 og:image:height: 1653 og:image:alt: Daniel Radcliffe og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch Daniel Radcliffe Fans Freak Out When He Surprises Them After a Movie Screening twitter:description: You'd think they just saw a dementor or something twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3001f5a94f570ca0/69869d461eebf73cf9372039/daniel-radcliffe-harry-potter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch Daniel Radcliffe Fans Freak Out When He Surprises Them After a Movie Screening > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=26f8b7b7-6899-43e9-88d0-e5990d01035e&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Aug 14, 2014 9:41 PM UTC  Daniel Radcliffe in Toronto promoting his movie What if? on July 23, 2014. Daniel Radcliffe in Toronto promoting his movie What if? on July 23, 2014. Chris So—Toronto Star/Getty Images by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Aug 14, 2014 9:41 PM UTC In what he called “a cunning and hopefully joyful act of deception,” Daniel Radcliffe decided to surprise fans following a screening of his new movie, _What If._ These viewers _think_ they’re gathering to do short interviews about their reactions to the film. But really, they’re being gathered so they can just completely freak out when the actor walks up behind them for this hilarious clip[ from BuzzFeed Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV--POoMuEc). Naturally, reactions include a lot of squealing, gasping and yelling, “Oh my god.” After they calm down a bit, most people ask for hugs, which Radcliffe gamely hands out like they’re Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. He says he “feels kind of bad doing this to so many people” but like, c’mon Harry Potter, you know you love it. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3113124/daniel-radcliffe-surprises-fans-at-movie-theater-screening/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3113124/daniel-radcliffe-surprises-fans-at-movie-theater-screening/"},"headline":"Watch Daniel Radcliffe Fans Freak Out When He Surprises Them After a Movie Screening","datePublished":"2014-08-14T21:41:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:12:28.420Z","description":"You'd think they just saw a dementor or something","url":"https://time.com/3113124/daniel-radcliffe-surprises-fans-at-movie-theater-screening/","keywords":["Newsfeed","movies","Harry Potter","celebrity","buzzfeed","daniel radcliffe"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3001f5a94f570ca0/69869d461eebf73cf9372039/daniel-radcliffe-harry-potter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3001f5a94f570ca0/69869d461eebf73cf9372039/daniel-radcliffe-harry-potter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Daniel Radcliffe","caption":"Daniel Radcliffe","creditText":"Chris So—Toronto Star/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3113124/daniel-radcliffe-surprises-fans-at-movie-theater-screening/","name":"Watch Daniel Radcliffe Fans Freak Out When He Surprises Them After a Movie Screening"}}]}] ```