A Minecraft Movie director Jared Hess has said Jack Black had a "secret crush" on Jason Momoa before they started shooting the big screen adaptation of the hugely popular video game.
Black plays expert builder Steve and Momoa is Garrett "The Garbage Man" Garrison in the live-action feature based on the sandbox game which has become a worldwide phenomenon since its release in 2011.
Their characters bicker onscreen, but Hess, known for directing the indie classic Napoleon Dynamite, said that the actors formed a close bond while making the movie.
"It was funny, before we started shooting, Jack had a secret crush on Jason Momoa," Hess told RTÉ Entertainment.
"He's like 'Hess, what's it like with Jason?' [I said] 'Dude, you're gonna love him'. And then Momoa too is like 'Bro, Jack Black is one of my heroes. I'm kind of nervous working with him’.
"But they hit it off so amazingly, it became a kind of a bromance from the beginning. The whole shoot was a real rodeo, for sure."
The 45-year-old American filmmaker, who previously worked with Black on 2006's Nacho Libre, said it was "magical" reuniting with the beloved actor.
"He's a world class artist and entertainer and comedian, but also human being," Hess said.
"The amount of love and respect he has for everybody on the crew was just amazing and that affects the shoot in a way where everybody's just having an incredible experience."
As well as Black and Momoa, the movie also stars Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers, Sebastian Hansen, Jennifer Coolidge and Jemaine Clement.
Hess was full of praise for Coolidge, known for her work on the American Pie and Legally Blonde film series, as well as her Golden Globe and Emmy-winning turn as Tanya McQuoid in the HBO anthology show, The White Lotus.
"Oh my goodness, she's one of the funniest people on the planet," he enthused. "She appears on-screen in anything and maybe hasn't even said her first line and people immediately start laughing because they know that they're in for a good time.
"And when we were shooting, it was the same thing. Everyone was doing their best not to laugh during her takes because she improvises and comedic gold comes out of her mouth all the time. We could have done a whole other movie with the outtakes."
Hess said Flight of the Conchords comedy star Clement also loved to improvise while shooting adding: "[When] you've got talent like that, you've got to cut them loose."
Adapting Minecraft, the biggest-selling video game of all time and a game with infinite possibilities, for the big-screen added a significant weight of expectation.
"The whole crew as we developed the film, we all felt that pressure," Hess said. "But at the end of the day, we all loved the game so much, we just took everything we loved about the game.
"You can't do everything, because like you say, it's infinite, but we took our favourite characters, our favourite mods, environments and the fun, ridiculous, creative nature of the game and try to celebrate it in the film."
Hess, who shares four children with his wife Jerusha, said that they didn't want to disappoint young fans of the game.
"I think all of us with children you know that are the most critical... the pressure, everybody felt it," he said. "I think everyone on the crew, we're all big kids at heart anyway and as filmmakers you have to be.
"You want to keep that fun, naive approach to the world and how you experience things. We had our kid hats on the whole time."
The director said that highlighting the importance of creativity was an important message in the film.
"It's such a critical point of the game too - you have to be creative to survive," he said. "One of the elements that we wanted to bring to the movie is that it's also hard to be creative and to put yourself out there to be judged - especially in a world of social media.
"I think it takes a lot of courage for people to be creative, but we have to do it. Even in a world of AI [artificial intelligence], we have to find ways to continue to be creative as human beings.
"That's just a critical part of human existence, and making the world a better place."
A Minecraft Movie is out in cinemas on 4 April.
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