Nicholas Galitzine put in the hours for his role in Masters of the Universe.

The 31-year-old actor plays protagonist Prince Adam/He-Man in the new movie based on the Mattel franchise of the same name and threw himself into the considerable amount of gym and stunt work required for the part.

Galitzine told SFX magazine: "I came in for about five months of pre-production. I would've loved more time in the gym and learning stunts, but I made it work.

"I was in the gym for about three hours a day and I was in stunt training for about two hours every day. There would be three to four hours of make-up and costume every day, too. It was a life."

Nicholas detailed how He-Man's costume evolved over the course of production on the sword and sorcery flick - which is released in cinemas next month.

The Idea of You star said: "We tried a lot of variations. The boots were longer at one point. We shortened them.

"The chest plate was fully revealing at one point. It evolved. Even the sword took a lot of discussion."

Galitzine revealed that there were "lots of discussions" about covering He-Man up more during the picture, although this was challenging because of the physical demands of the role.

He said: "There were lots of discussions. The difficult thing we talked about was how much of the film I was going to be uncovered for, because it was pretty much half the film.

"Physically, that's a difficult thing to achieve because it involves a lot of dehydration and stuff like that."

However, The Sheep Detectives actor revealed that he flatly rejected the proposal of He-Man wearing leather pants in the film.

Galitzine recalled: "Leather pants were an option for He-Man at one point and I told them, unequivocally, no. I demanded, 'No leather pants!'"

Meanwhile, the star explained how several swords were made for He-Man to wield as the crew tried to find the perfect weight.

Nicholas said: "There were about 12 iterations. They'd give it to me in stunt rehearsals because I had to learn how to wield it as if it weighed nothing.

"At times, my forearms were burning up, so we'd have to shift the balance. They'd say, 'Okay, we need to move the weight from the crossbridge to the pommel and see if that helps.' It was crazy."

Galitzine also expressed delight that his He-Man likeness has been transformed into an action figure.

He said: "It's incredible. There's a He-Man Barbie! I mean, I've never seen hair more coiffed than my Barbie. I wish my hair had that weightlessness in real life.

"We can all imagine it, but it's insane to be given something that looks like you."