It's official: Rupert Grint is a certifiable heartthrob in the eyes of Canada's teenage girls.
The 18-year-old British actor was in Toronto Wednesday to walk the red carpet for the Canadian launch of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and he was greeted by dozens of screaming – and mostly female – fans who bounced about the excitable crowd trying to catch a glimpse of the young star.
There were a few Harry Potter costumes and a few people who were there to be able say they were first into the movie, but mostly it was all about the spectacle of seeing the real-life Ron Weasley.
“It's really crazy,” Grint said in between excited shrieks and screams coming from the boisterous crowd around him.
“It is really sort of hard to get used to, I don't know if I'll ever get used to it,” he admitted.
“But, it's really good…Everybody is really nice.”
Grint brought a shy smile and teenage charm for his legions of fans all of whom had their own personal reasons to see him.
Becca Ferguson, 16, and her friend Emily Wilken, 16, waited since 7 a.m. to catch get a front-of-the-line spot in hopes of getting a good look at Grint.
“It's Harry Potter and it's Rupert Grint,” Ferguson said of her reasons for staking out the first spot in line. “He's just such a good actor and such a good Ron.”
The two 16-year-olds were holding a sign proclaiming themselves as “Groupies for Rupie.”
And their hopes for when he made it down the red carpet?
“We want his autograph,” Ferguson said.
“We want him to smile at us,” Wilken added.
Forty-five minutes later when Grint finally made in through the throng of media along to where the two girls stood, he obliged the two with a photo and autographs.
“I don't know, oh my goodness,” Wilken said when asked to describe the meeting, moments after receiving an official Rupert Grint autograph. “He signed it!.”
Like a lot of the other fans at the premiere, who had screamed all the way through Grint's brief Canadian appearance, Ferguson was simply speechless.