Costume designer Richard Sale tells EW breaks down the creation of the fan-favorite characters.

See He-Man’s friends Fisto and Ram Man, and foe Trap Jaw, in first look at Masters of the Universe characters (exclusive)

Costume designer Richard Sale tells EW breaks down the creation of the fan-favorite characters.

By Staff Author

May 6, 2026 9:00 a.m. ET

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Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man in 'Masters of the Universe'. Credit:

Amazon MGM Studios

- See the first look at *Masters of the Universe* characters Fisto, Ram Man, and Trap Jaw.

- Costume designer Richard Sale reveals how each character was crafted.

- The final looks are a collaboration between the costume, prosthetic makeup, and special effects teams.

Richard Sale has helped design lots of well-known characters as part of the costume department on some big movies — *Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom*, *Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness*, *Eternals*, *Wonder Woman 1984*, *Guardians of the Galaxy*, and *X-Men: First Class*, among them — but his latest was one of his hardest assignments yet, for the He-Man epic *Masters of the Universe*.

"Through years of knowing what is and what isn't achievable, we knew on the outset, with talking to our team and our costume prop team, we knew we could do these characters justice. That's why we stuck with them," Sale tells ** about the cast of action figures turned big screen heroes and villains. Still, he adds with a laugh, "there were times [in] the process I was like, *Oh my God, why did I say yes*?"

With a team of at least 120 people ("I might be underselling that massively," he admits) — across cutting and tailoring, costume props, painting, molding, leather working, muscle suit fabrication (no, not for star Nicholas Galitzine...that's all natural!), and textiles — the costume designer had a unique cast of characters to help director Travis Knight bring to life not just Prince Adam/He-Man, his childhood friend and royal guard Teela (Camila Mendes), her dad Duncan/Man-at-Arms (Idris Elba), the evil Skeletor (Jared Leto) and his righthand-woman Evil-Lyn (Alison Brie), but their teams of warriors.

And EW has a first look at three of those characters: longtime Eternian defenders and friends of He-Man, Fisto (Johannes Haukur Johannesson, *Vikings: Valhalla*), who's equipped with a metal right hand and one of the strongest warriors around, and Ram Man (Jon Xue Zhang, *The Brothers Sun*), a short, stocky warrior who can use his head as a battering ram; as well as one of Skeletor's minions, the cyborg and metal-mouthed Trap Jaw (Sam C. Wilson, *House of the Dragon*).

Where the monstrous Beast Man is a complete visual effects character, as is He-Man's feline friend Cringer/Battle Cat, these three, Sale says, "definitely felt like they were achievable within the costume department. And also with the story that they had to tell, Travis wanted that humanity there as well."

'Masters of the Universe'.

Amazon MGM Studios

Of the animated series' many colorful characters, Sale acknowledges there were "way more" that they had hoped to work into the movie. Still, there was a strong desire to feature these three, which turned out to be "the most challenging of all the costumes" to develop, given that the actors bringing them to life also had to, of course, be able to engage in the movie's big fight scenes.

"It's always a fine line between creating these visually amazing looks, but then remembering that there's going to have to be a human being inside of it wearing it on and off for 10, 12 hours a day," he says. "Alongside that, there's going to be a stunt person being asked to do ridiculous things and has to do them. I mean, there's no point in building or drawing something or designing something and then building it where it can't be worn to the point that it affects performance. You need performance at the end of the day, otherwise it may as well be visual effects."

And the looks of these three characters are largely untouched from the action figures on which they're based.

"We wanted people to see these characters realized from the cartoons that they watched and the toys that they played with," Sale explains. "We didn't want it to be some new Marvel imagination, imagined version, or some super-duper slick version. The world that they occupy is this weird, medieval, futuristic thing. And we wanted to keep it grounded in that, but also for people to go, 'I played with that character!'"

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See Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, Alison Brie's 'Masters of the Universe' action figures

They got that confirmation during camera tests with the actors.

"These guys came onto set for the first time just to walk around and for people to have a look at them in their prototype faces. Everyone's reaction was, 'It's a huge six-foot toy.' I mean, seven-foot toy in some cases," he says. "Travis and I looked at each other. That's the reaction you want. We can make them realistic and within the look of a film... But that's the reaction you want. It's the Masters of the Universe. It's not a re-imagination. It's a thoughtful nod."

Below, Sale breaks down the look and mechanics of Ram Man, Fisto, and Trap Jaw.

Jon Xue Zhang as Ram Man in 'Masters of the Universe'.

Ram Man fights "head first, arms down — that kind of blunt force object," Sale describes. But he also has to emote and interact with people, which he couldn't do if the head piece didn't rotate, like the Batman cowl, he points out as an example.

As for the rest of his body, in the toy and the cartoon, Ram Man's metal shoulder piece extends all the way over his arms. "In theory, he wouldn't be able to get his arms past a certain point... But we want our Ram Man to be fighting, punching, as well as doing all those kinds of great Ram Man things."

The solution? "We made all of that armor soft. So everything that you see on camera is soft and spongy. It's a soft urethane foam. So he's able to bounce in it a bit. He's able to move it, and the shoulder panels move inside the armor, so it gives him a little bit of movement with the arms."

The visual effects department came in handy with Ram Man's legs, "to give him his springing, traditional fighting stance of his legs elongated."

But even they needed something to work from, so the textile team created a print with the look of copper wiring, paired with "foam legs that looked like spring coils."

Johannes Haukur Johannesson as Fisto in 'Masters of the Universe'.

The super-strong Fisto has a more traditional costume of leather and urethane armor pieces.

"The fist, however — which we actually built in the costume props department — there was a lot of conversation about whether it should be a visual effect, but we felt we could do it," Sale says. That meant "some very clever person in costume props building every single piece of that and 3D printing it and designing it like a highly engineered piece of machinery."

Sale says it took six or seven months of research and development to land on a design; the team questioned whether it should look like the Incredible Hulk's hand — "just a big solid fist," he says — but that wouldn't have given Johannesson the ability to "articulate with it. He ended up swearing with it quite a lot, which was quite funny.... On one of the early camera tests, he developed this romantic gesture with it," Sale recalls, mimicking the actor blowing into his hand to create movement with it.

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Sam C. Wilson as Trap Jaw in 'Masters of the Universe'.

The powerful Trap Jaw became a big collaboration between the costume, prosthetic makeup, and visual effects teams. The latter was responsible for his entire right arm, which featured interchangeable weapons, such as a claw, a hook, and a laser gun.

His legs, though, proved to be a time-consuming design. "As soon as you try to extend the human body in a way that is not particularly natural, and this works for any kind of armor that stands off the body, it starts to clash with the body's natural instinct to bend and crease in the way that it does. With normal suits of armor, that's why there's pivot points in the elbow and the shoulder, and you don't really fight those points."

Actor Sam C. Wilson also had to be able "to run in them, jump in them, do his action in them, and not fall down with the weight of them." Sale says one variation was "quite heavy," and there was a rubberized pair "for all the stunt work and all the fighting."

In early pre-visualization, Trap Jaw was meant to be sprinting in one sequence. Sale noted to Knight and the team that Wilson probably wouldn't be able to run that fast because he would "be wearing basically a pair of calipers." That gave the team a chance to think of the Trap Jaw in a more mechanical way. "That was incorporated into the character that was brought to life as well. It's a much more half-human, half-robot thing. And that's great because we were able to then add an element of robotics to the cyborg mercenaries."

Prosthetic makeup designer Barrie Gower and his team designed Trap Jaw's helmet, which is "so integral to the jaw and to his head" that it has to be a specially molded silicon prosthetic.

"That whole thing that they did to the jaw to give him the range of motion with it and so he could deliver these amazing lines, it was a joy," Sale says.

And now, he's just looking forward to seeing the final results of his team's work when the movie opens on June 5.

"There's been so much brilliant promotional work about it, and having been also involved in the toy manufacturing process all the way through, I kind of just want to see it now because I've had so many comments about it on socials and on friends just saying, 'Oh my God, this looks amazing!'" he says. "We just want to get to see it on a scale that's going to be brilliant."

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