Maggie Gyllenhaal Reflects on ‘Intimate’ Reunion with Christian Bale 18 Years After The Dark Knight

Maggie Gyllenhaal and Christian Bale paired up again 18 years after playing doomed lovers in The Dark Knight for The Bride! — but it’s far from your typical Hollywood reunion.

For Gyllenhaal’s second movie as a director following 2021’s Oscar-nominated The Lost Daughter, the actress-turned-filmmaker, 48, cast Bale, 52, as Frankenstein’s creature (he’s named Frank in this reimagining of The Bride of Frankenstein) opposite Jessie Buckley, who plays the titular monster bride.

Gyllenhaal tells PEOPLE that despite working “closely” with Bale on The Dark Knight, in which she played Gotham District Attorney Rachel Dawes opposite Bale’s Bruce Wayne/Batman, she felt like she was meeting the actor “anew” as his director.

“I really liked him, and making that movie was amazing, but it wasn’t nearly as intimate as what was required here,” Gyllenhaal says, comparing the experiences. “And so even when I called him and offered him the part … I mean, it had been so long since we’d worked together, I felt like what we needed to even immediately start talking about and thinking about and discussing and feeling together was so much deeper than what we’d gotten into the last time. Even the first phone call felt like a whole new thing.”

“My Frank, our Frank, is so many things,” she adds of their interpretation of the classic horror character. “Yes, he’s monstrous and does violent things full of rage. He does. But he’s also so smart, funny, vulnerable, lonely, and I needed all of that in one actor, in one heart, in one mind in order to make this work. So we had to get into it.”

As for Bale, the actor had similar things to say to PEOPLE at the New York City premiere of the film, when explaining their process for The Bride! Due to the intense nature of the project, Bale said they didn’t have time to reminisce about their time making Christopher Nolan’s second Batman film.

“People think, like, you’ve got a ton of time to hang out on movie sets. You really don’t,” Bale said. “You’re going, going, going nonstop. And the director, they don’t have any downtime at all. So it’s really not much chit chat going on like that, reminiscing. We had to get into it.”

The Bride! also stars Penélope Cruz, Julianne Hough, John Magaro and Annette Bening. The movie is in theaters March 6.