'Masters of the Universe' star Nicholas Galitzine reveals his gruelling He-Man workout and 5,000-calorie diet plan

Nicholas Galitzine is pulling back the curtain on what it took to become He-Man. The 31-year-old actor, who stars in the newly released 'Masters of the Universe', opened up about his diet and workout routine in a new 'Train Like' video for Men's Health, offering a candid look at the physical demands of preparing for one of his most physically transformative roles to date.

Galitzine had previously described bulking up for the film as the hardest thing he had ever done, and the details he shared in the video make it easy to understand why.

Nicholas Galitzine's workout routine for 'Masters of the Universe'

Galitzine explained that his training changed significantly depending on where he was in the filming process. "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.

Fitting workouts into the shooting schedule proved particularly challenging. "We'd reduce the weight session to about 45 minutes, but we'd basically do at least an hour and a half of cardio every day. And fitting that into the shooting schedule was a really, really tricky thing," he said. "So sometimes I had to film a scene and when we were changing setups, I'd run outside and bank 10 to 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."

Since wrapping on the film, Galitzine revealed his training has changed considerably. "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 diet challenge behind He-Man

The dietary demands of the role were equally gruelling. Galitzine went from approximately 80 kilos up to between 103 and 105 kilos before cutting back down to around 91 kilos for filming. "A really tricky thing when you're putting on a lot of size is it's very hard to gain just pure muscle without gaining some fat as well," he explained. "I certainly didn't feel like myself at over 100 kilos."

At the peak of his bulk, Galitzine was consuming between 4,000 and 5,000 calories a day. "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 wish it was fun food, but yeah, very depressing," he said.

During the cut phase, finding the right balance was equally difficult. "There was so little food. With a movie like this where you're doing a huge amount of stunt work, you need the energy. 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 just getting a little bit of dopamine from Coke Zero," he admitted.

'Masters of the Universe' is currently showing in theatres.