Devyn Dalton: She is Matt Damon's Stunt Double in The Odyssey
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Matt Damon, who plays Odysseus in Christopher Nolan’s interpretation of Homer’s epic tale, said in an interview that she had “the greatest arms I have ever seen.”
Damon had been discussing one of the film’s pivotal scenes when he gently corrected his interlocutor, who had mistakenly assumed the biceps in the shot were his own: They belonged to Dalton, who some might be surprised to learn is his stunt double. She’s a woman standing in for a male actor, for starters; she’s also 4-foot-6 to Damon’s roughly 5-foot-10 frame. Indeed, a shot of Dalton from behind in the scene, holding a sword and ready to pounce at the giants, is used in one of the posters for the movie.
That scene, in which Matt Damon stands facing the giants, has become famous for his biceps, which are not his but Devyn Dalton’s. Damon said in the interview that on the first day he met Dalton and hugged her he immediately noticed that she had “the greatest arms” he'd ever seen.
Although he didn’t identify her by name in the interview, word soon spread that it was the 34-year-old Dalton who stood facing seven-foot-tall stuntmen playing the Laestrygonians.
Dalton, born and raised in Canada, trained as a dancer initially and started performing stunts in 2011 after she was cast in the Planet of the Apes trilogy. The Odyssey is the first time Dalton has done stunts for a male A-lister. Dalton told The New York Times: "I never thought I would have that on my résumé."
Indeed, it's a rare feat in an industry where, according to the SAG-AFTRA union, women make up little more than 20 percent of performers.
Variety reports that The Odyssey has become the fourth highest-grossing movie of the year after just 12 days in theaters. Christopher Nolan's Greek epic has generated $320.5 million domestically and $407.4 million overseas, bringing worldwide ticket sales to $727.9 million. Experts predict that the movie may eventually achieve $1.5 billion.