Matt Damon said his stunt double, Devyn Dalton, handled most of the on-screen body work in The Odyssey. He added that his biceps were “almost 100 percent” real, but the rest of the transformation belonged to Dalton, who also stood in for him during the fight with the Laestrygonians.
Devyn Dalton and the Laestrygonians
Damon described the Laestrygonians sequence as a practical setup built around scale rather than CGI. He said the giants were made to look imposing with a low-to-high camera angle, while the stunt performers playing them were all seven feet tall and some stunt performers were under five feet.
That mix put Dalton in the middle of a shot design meant to sell size without leaning on digital shortcuts. Damon said, “My double was a woman, a female stunt performer, who had the greatest arms I’ve ever seen.”
Matt Damon in the catering tent
Damon said he met Dalton for the first time in the catering tent and went up to hug her and thank her for all the work she had put in. Before The Odyssey, Dalton was listed in the Stunts Unlimited Directory as a stuntwoman with a background in dance, and her work included boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, sword fighting, and weapons on set.
She has also taken on action doubles for other actors and actresses, including Millie Bobby Brown. In this film, though, her work sat closest to Damon’s own body, which is why the final image on screen can read as the actor’s physique even when the performance was partly built elsewhere.
Lean, strong, and 167 pounds
Damon said he lost a lot of weight for The Odyssey, going from walking around between 185 and 200 pounds to 167 pounds for the movie. He said Christopher Nolan wanted him lean but strong, and he added that he had not been that light since high school.
He also called the preparation especially hard as a man in his 50s. On the Sunday Sitdown podcast, he said the work was “my own cross to bear, away from everybody,” and on Happy Sad Confused he said Nolan had warned him the movie was going to be really hard.
What the body work leaves
The practical takeaway is simple: Damon’s size on screen in The Odyssey was not a solo job. Dalton carried the hidden body work in scenes where the camera, the stunt team, and the lead actor’s training had to match, and the film’s toughest-looking moments depend on that division of labor.
The unanswered piece is the exact list of shots where Dalton replaced Damon, but the broad pattern is already clear enough for anyone watching the film: the performance is Damon’s, while the body behind some of it is Dalton’s.
