'Moon Knight' 's Ethan Hawke and Oscar Isaac Talk Bromance and Internet Thirst: 'It's Gorgeous'

Ethan Hawke and Oscar Isaac's first meeting and fast friendship have played out in a most charming manner.

"We met during the pandemic outside a coffee shop in Brooklyn," Hawke, 51, tells PEOPLE in this week's issue. "We certainly knew of each other for a long time and we have a lot of mutual friends. I'd heard a lot of great things about [Oscar] from other people that I know. So it didn't feel like a first meeting in a strange way."

Adds Isaac: "Yeah, it was more like 'Finally! Hey man!' And he knows how to dress, had a nice hat on and cool denim jacket."

The Dune star, 43, then took the opportunity to pitch Hawke on potentially joining him in the new limited Marvel series Moon Knight, in which Isaac had already signed on to star.

"His passion and dedication and commitment to this part was powerful and immediate," recalls Hawke. "I've always believed that when an actor has a real fire in their heart and you feel the heat of that fire, you're like, 'Oh, this is a good team to be on.' Because good things happen when a performer has a strong hit on what they want to do."

Isaac says the move (and his pitch) was a strategic one. "To have a creature like him; who's a writer and a director, and everything is full a 100 percent commitment and you're going into the trenches, that's what you want with you," he says. "And so the bonus was that he said 'Yes.' "

Watch the full episode of Double Talk: Ethan Hawke & Oscar Isaac on PeopleTV.com or on the PeopleTV app.

The actors are also happily embracing fan art and love for their onscreen pairing in Moon Knight.

"Did you see there was a post somewhere, somebody did a poster with my Before Sunrise [trilogy]?" Hawke asks his costar. "They did a Before Moon Knight with us kissing."

"Beautiful. That's gorgeous," says Isaac. "Sometimes the internet really comes through."

Although Isaac and Hawke's characters are at odds in the Marvel limited series about Egyptian gods and their influence on humans — Isaac plays a man suffering from dissociative identity disorder and Hawke a mysterious authority figure — the actors had a blast working together.

"Neither one of us had been in this kind of storytelling before," says Hawke. "But we could rely on each other like, 'Wait, that's good, right?' 'Yes. That is good.' We felt safe with one another and just have a similar vocabulary."

For much more on Ethan Hawke and Oscar Isaac, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE on newsstands Friday

They also made the most of their downtime filming on location in Budapest and the Wadi Rum desert in Jordan.

"There's a beautiful track around Margaret Island [in Budapest] that we would go and run around," says Isaac.

"Yeah, we'd work on the script and try to get tired," adds Hawke. "We worked a lot of nights, so it was kind of our morning [ritual], but my memory is it was usually sunset."

"Full sunset runs together," Isaac continues. "That's where we fell in love."

Moon Knight is now streaming on Disney+