Captain America: Brave New World Director Says Working with Harrison Ford Was 'Mind-Blowing' (Exclusive)

Captain America: Brave New World director Julius Onah got to work with one of his onscreen heroes in the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe movie.

In an interview with PEOPLE, Onah, 42, said working with Harrison Ford, 82, was "mind-blowing," having grown up watching him in classics like Indiana Jones and Star Wars.

"It's funny because you don't mention Indiana Jones and you don't mention Star Wars just because of Harrison," Onah says. "These are massive, larger than life, popular properties that have influenced so many people. But they also happen to be two massive franchises that include Harrison Ford, obviously one of them in the titular role. So getting to meet him was mind-blowing. I learned a tremendous amount from him. Getting a chance to direct him was mind-blowing too."

Ford portrays Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross in the fourth Captain America movie; the late William Hurt previously played that character in the MCU. The sequel sees Ross and Anthony Mackie's Sam Wilson develop a tense relationship after Ross is elected President of the United States.

"Just like Mackie, I think they both really poured themselves into their performances in this movie," Onah says of Ford and Mackie. Finding a level of emotional authenticity for the actors' characters proved important on set, adds the filmmaker.

"So when I got past being starstruck, and we got down to the nitty gritty of just starting to talk about the role, I had a point of view in terms of what I thought the emotional journey of this character should be," he adds of working with Ford. "He responded to that. And then it was just about how do we bring details and nuance and surprise and specificity to that. There's nobody better than Harrison when it comes to bringing these characters to life."

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Asked about Ford's famous dry sense of humor during public appearances and working with him on set, Onah says that he thinks Ford "loves sort of leaning into that expectation and playing around with it."

"What is not fun about getting to be this individual who is so larger than life that so many people have responded to?" he says, noting Ford's decades-standing star status. "But I think it's also his way of staying grounded of not losing oneself in whatever set of expectations or whatever set of ideas people have of you. I really appreciated that about him — let's just get past the big global famous movie star of it and just be human."

Captain America: Brave New World is in theaters now.