Nicholas Galitzine Breaks Down His Intense Physical Transformation for Masters of the Universe Role

Nicholas Galitzine is pulling back the curtain on the physical demands of bringing He-Man to life in the new Masters of the Universe film now playing in theaters.

The 31-year-old actor opened up about his training regimen and dietary challenges in a "Train Like" feature for Men's Health, detailing how his body transformed for the superhero role.

Galitzine explained that maintaining his massive frame required careful planning. "My He-Man workout on a day-to-day basis after I had built all of the muscle and had cut mostly was just doing a variety of exercises to kind of maintain the muscle mass that I'd built," he said. His routine shifted dramatically once filming wrapped, however. "My training has changed a lot since I filmed He-Man because I have been filming a lot of other roles that don't require me to be that large. I had a call from my next director about three days after I finished He-Man saying, 'Please stop working out.' And so I miss my He-Man workouts quite a lot."

The actor's physical journey was substantial. He progressed from approximately 80 kilos to a peak of 103-105 kilos, before cutting down to around 91 kilos for the final product. "I certainly didn't feel like myself at over 100 kilos," he admitted.

Balancing training with the demands of an active film set proved challenging. Production days required him to compress his weight sessions to roughly 45 minutes while squeezing in at least 90 minutes of cardio. "Fitting that into the shooting schedule was a really, really tricky thing," Galitzine explained. "Sometimes, you know, I had to film a scene and when we were changing setups, I'd run outside and bank, you know, 10-15 minutes on the assault bike, run back in, shoot the rest of the scene, run back out again. And I'd say that was just mentally draining because you're kind of always on throughout a shooting day."

The nutritional aspect presented its own hurdles. At peak conditioning, Galitzine consumed between 4,000 and 5,000 calories daily, often facing late-night eating sessions. "You know, so many nights I'd get to about 10:00 p.m. and I'd still have my sort of sixth meal to consume. And it's not fun food. I I wish it was fun food, but um yeah, very depressing," he shared.

Managing energy levels while performing extensive stunt work required strategic dietary adjustments. "There was so little food. I mean, it's hard because, you know, with a movie like this where you're doing a huge amount of stunt work, you need the energy," Galitzine noted. "And so, you know, having more fats in my diet, reducing some carbs, we just basically found the things that could give me the most joy. The light in the middle of the day was was just getting a little bit of um of dopamine from from Coke Zero."

The actor has previously described the physical transformation as the most challenging endeavor of his career.