The world is built on some very simple truths. The sky is blue. Grass is green. And Skeletor from Masters of the Universe has a talking skull for a face. Period.
That’s the thinking of Travis Knight, at least. He’s the director of the upcoming Masters of the Universe film, and in a new interview, he revealed that previous versions of the film before he came on took a different approach to the franchise’s most famous villain. Instead of a white, talking skull, it was a person with a gold skull mask. “I said, ‘Fuck that shit,’” Knight told Empire Magazine. ‘Skeletor has a skull face.’ That’s just the way it is. It’s a living, talking, emoting skull, and that’s that.”
“That’s that,” indeed. Knight’s adherence to the iconic look of Skeletor was just one of the specific choices he made regarding the character. The other was to let actor Jared Leto, who approached Knight about the role, not the other way around, give his own take on him. “Skeletor was a really interesting villain,” Knight said. “He looked cool. He was scary. He was funny. He was insecure. And then, of course, he had this distinctive voice. I wanted someone to craft their own version of that.”
Which Leto did. “Jared approached us, because he loves Skeletor and has his own history with the character,” Knight said. “He wanted to swing for the fences. And ultimately, we landed on something that I’m really happy with. Skeletor’s kind of the embodiment of toxic masculinity.”
With everything we’ve heard and read about Leto, his playing “the embodiment of toxic masculinity” is arguably scarier than a superpowered talking skeleton. What was he like on set? We don’t even want to think about it.
Leto co-stars along with Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Adam/He-Man, Camila Mendes as Teela, Idris Elba as Man-at-Arms, and Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn when Masters of the Universe comes to theaters June 5.
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