Jake Gyllenhaal surprised moviegoers in Boston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. Saturday during screenings of his new crime thriller "Nightcrawler," which he also produced.

The 33-year-old Oscar-nominated actor made a surprise appearance at the AMC Loews Boston Common Saturday afternoon, AceShowbiz reported. Moviegoers thought that the film's writer and director Dan Gilroy would be the one making an appearance, but it turned out that the filmmaker could not make in time for the screening, so Gyllenhaal gladly attended the screening as his replacement.

After the screening, the "Brokeback Mountain" star had an interview with the Boston Globe at the Ritz-Carlton, and then flew to Philadelphia where he similarly surprised college students at the Rave Cinemas University City 6 during a screening of his new film, Philadelphia Daily News reported.

Gyllenhaal and Gilroy, who teamed up for the promotional effort in the town, had dinner at Stephen Starr's Pod before the movie screening.

For the last stop that day, the Los Angeles, California-born actor took a flight to Washington D.C. where he similarly surprised Georgetown students at a screening.

"Nightcrawler" follows the story of Louis Bloom (Gyllenhaal), an obsessive man who finds himself in the world of freelance Los Angeles crime journalism.

Meanwhile, Gyllenhaal, who would also like to take the director's chair someday, has recently said that he has yet to find the right material for his directorial debut.

"I'm searching ... but I have yet to feel presumptuous enough," Gyllenhaal said at Saturday's Produced By: New York conference, according to Variety.

He added that he will know that he has already found the right material when his "heart lines up with the material ... in a visual way."

Gyllenhaal has already started working behind the camera. In 2012, he executive produced the police drama "End of Watch."

The "Donnie Darko" star's father, Stephen Gyllenhaal, is a director, and his mother, Naomi Foner, is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, so it is not surprising that he is also interested in working behind the camera.

"The language I knew was behind the camera," he said. "I've always been fascinated by the abrasion of what's in front of the camera and behind the camera."

"Story is king," said Gyllenhaal. "Whatever format you're telling your story in as long as it's a great story."