Bryce Dallas Howard was starstruck when she found out that her love interest in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village would be played by her childhood crush Joaquin Phoenix.

On the latest episode of Podcrushed, Howard discussed her breakout role in Shyamalan’s 2004 thriller, in which she starred opposite Phoenix.

“I had the biggest crush on Joaquin Phoenix when I was seven years old, and he was Leaf Phoenix, and he was in Parenthood,” she told co-host Penn Badgley. “And it was insane being like, ‘Oh, you want me to play a character who’s been in love with this guy, like, her whole life? Sure.’”

Howard joked that it was “no problem” and that she actually crushed hard on movie sets. She also told the Podcrushed gang that she worked on the set of her father Ron Howard’s 1995 film Apollo 13 as a tween and had a crush on a young Colin Hanks, who was a PA on the movie.

The Village centers around an isolated 19th-century community that lives in a forest surrounded by monster-like humanoids. Phoenix plays rebellious protagonist Lucius, who is betrothed to Howard’s Ivy.

Howard shared that her experience on The Village, which was her first movie role, was “very magical.” She added that the cast was an “unbelievable group of people,” including Phoenix, Adrien Brody, and Sigourney Weaver.

Shyamalan cast Howard as a lead in the film after seeing her perform in As You Like It at the Public Theater in New York, which she said was a “career-defining moment.”

Howard added, “That was very, I mean, incredibly courageous of Night to cast me, and he was really supportive.“

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