At CrimeReads, we’ve long advocated for more fanfare for cinematic stuntwork, so we want to share a little nugget of recent mainstream stuntwork appreciation! In an interview for Christopher Nolan’s new film The Odyssey (in which he plays Odysseus), Damon was interviewed about some of the intense fight sequences. When he received a compliment him on how defined his biceps were in a scene, Damon politely corrected the interviewer, noting that it was his stunt double who played those scenes. And, Damon explained, his stunt double was a woman.
Her name is Devyn Dalton, and Damon said that she has “the greatest arms [he has] ever seen.” It is fairly unusual for a woman stunt performer to double for a male actor, but also might seem extra surprising in this case, since Dalton is 4’6″, while Damon is 5’10”.
But there are many, many scenes in The Odyssey where Odysseus is dwarfed by the creatures he encounters, including the battle between his army and the man-eating giants called the Laestrygonians, in which scene Dalton’s arms were on display.
Here’s an image with Dalton standing in for Damon, so you can see what everyone’s talking about:
Alisha Haridasani Gupta has since interviewed Dalton for The New York Times about her work on the film, and just how Nolan managed to make the two performers’ actions (and physical frames) seamlessly appear to belong to the same character.
