Noah Centineo had "screen-tested the loincloth" before exiting Masters of the Universe.

The 30-year-old actor has opened up about how close he got to playing Mattel creation He-Man in this year's blockbuster, having been cast in 2024 - two years after Kyle Allen was first attached - before exiting the project with the part eventually going to Nicholas Galitzine.

He told the Happy Sad Confused podcast: "We were pretty close, dude. I went through the test process. We screen-tested the loincloth and stuff, all of it.

"I signed the contract… We got pretty close, and then for some reason or another, it just [got] pushed and pushed, and then, I think, they just wanted to keep tweaking it and tweaking it."

The delays to the project came at the same time as his contract running out, amid all sorts of changes behind the scenes.

Centineo explained: "We moved on, and then, I think, Netflix acquired it for a little bit, and then Amazon acquired it, and they found Nick, and god, dude, Nick.

"I mean, it's so difficult. It's so difficult to step into a role like that. I mean, that's not an easy movie to make at all."

There were no hard feelings, and Centineo - who is set to star in the upcoming Street Fighter live action film - admitted he still watched Masters of the Universe, and he was impressed by how well Galitzine embraced the "camp" vibe.

He added: "I watched it, and Nick is incredible. How else do you do it? Like, people don't understand how hard it is to do camp wholeheartedly.

"And you know, it's like if the movie works, the movie doesn't work often times, especially in that situation.

"I don't blame him for that. I loved what he was doing and what he was trying to do."

Galitzine previously detailed how He-Man's costume evolved over the course of production on the sword and sorcery flick.

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."

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, Galitzine flatly rejected the proposal of He-Man wearing leather pants in the film.

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