Masters Of The Universe director declares Jared Leto's Skeletor "the embodiment of toxic masculinity”

And while we still don’t know how nasal it’s all going to get, a new interview with Knight centered on the character has given us a lot of exciting new phrases that we can already feel gnawing through our brains, in search of the perfect place to lay their eggs. For instance, Knight’s assertion (in conversation with Empire) that “Skeletor’s kind of the embodiment of toxic masculinity,” which is a wild thing to say about a guy who seems to basically be a muscle suit that’s been carefully layered over some bones. Equally alarming: The news that nobody asked Leto to go out for this part, as Knight notes, “Jared approached us, because he loves Skeletor and has his own history with the character. He wanted to swing for the fences.” (“Oh me?” the tulpa of Leto who lives full-time in our minds may have remarked. “I have my own history with Skeletor.”)

God bless Knight for knowing what he wants, though: The Empire piece also sees the director be asked about plans related to older version of Masters movies—because Hollywood has been trying to make this thing for 17 years at this point—that would have tried to de-goofify Skeletor by giving him a scary golden skull mask, instead of the full skeleton treatment. “Fuck that shit,” Knight declared. “Skeletor has a skull face. That’s just the way it is. It’s a living, talking, emoting skull, and that’s that.”