Nicholas Galitzine may have seen all his strict dieting and hard work at the gym pay off to transform into He-Man for “Masters of the Universe,” but he didn’t mind when that training came to an end.
“I had to go into a movie three weeks later where the director said, ‘I need you to not look the way you look right now, so eat what you want, stop weightlifting,’” Galitzine told me at the “Masters of the Universe” premiere Monday night at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. “I said, ‘That is music to my ears. I’m not going to do anything for three weeks.’ And I’ll tell you, it’s depressing. It takes so long to put on, [but] it’s so quick to come off.”
So what did his non-training meals look like? “I was like, ‘Macaroni cheese,’ but you don’t even want to know,” Galitzine said. “It was sickening.’”
Nicholas Galitzine says it was “sickening” what he had to eat to change his body again for another role after getting into intense shape to play He-Man in "Masters of the Universe." pic.twitter.com/la4vDhmNN6— Variety (@Variety) May 19, 2026
Director Travis Knight explained why Galitzine was perfect for the part even before seeing the physical transformation. “It’s a very daunting ask to ask any actor and say, ‘Hey, you’re going to be the most powerful man in the universe.’ That means boulder shoulders. That means giant biceps. That means rippling pectorals and six-pack abs. Who wants to embrace that?” he said, laughing. “But my man Nick, he completely embraced what that means. And that meant he had to transform his body. Nick is an extraordinary actor…But no one’s ever really seen him as an action hero.”
