Stuntwoman Devyn Dalton never stops training. Her workouts typically consist of strength exercises, mixed with martial arts and outdoor activities like hiking and running. The only things that change are the structures of her workouts, depending on the role she’s getting ready for.“When I am [preparing] for a role specifically, I’ll definitely figure out what I need for that [character],” she said.Sometimes it requires increased agility. Sometimes she needs to focus on athletic training. Regardless of the role, she has to be mentally sharp and completely submerge herself into the character, to the point of invisibility. Her latest challenge: standing in for Matt Damon in Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.” In a scene where Odysseus and his crew come into contact with the Laestrygonians, a tribe of man-eating giants, Dalton, who‘s four and a half feet tall, doubled for Damon. The filmmakers used the height difference to help create the illusion of the ginormous Laestrygonians.In a recent appearance on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, Damon gave his stunt double credit for having “the greatest arms” he’s ever seen.“It was almost 100% my arms in the movie, but you gotta give it up where it’s due,” Damon said. Matt Damon stars as Odysseus in “The Odyssey,” written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. (Melinda Sue Gordon / Universal Pictures) Dalton’s job isn’t just creating a character based on a different actor’s movement, her job is to blend in so seamlessly that the audience doesn’t even know it’s not Damon’s arms in battle, or that she’s the one tackling Amy Madigan’s Aunt Gladys in the climactic scene in 2025’s “Weapons.” That type of invisibility starts with the script itself. Before dissecting a scene, Dalton studies the character within the story. She looks at their emotions and motivations behind each movement. Once she understands the character, Dalton examines how the actor portrays the words on the page. She pays attention to how the actor’s mannerisms change when they are in action — how they walk, which foot they lean on and other subconscious physical gestures.Then, she disappears into the spectacle of the film.“That’s when you know you’ve done your job as a stunt double,” she said. “[The audience] should just see the character and it doesn’t take them out of the film.”As a stunt double, she is often put in dangerous situations that require extra focus. The butterflies never go away, Dalton said, and an adrenaline rush right before a physically demanding stunt is inevitable. In situations where she is doing a new stunt for the first time, Dalton tries to visualize everything that can go wrong and prepare to react to it. “You have to take a leap of faith and trust that the work you’ve put in is there for you,” she said.Stunt performers are also finally getting recognition from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2025, the organization announced that the Oscars will introduce a new category at the 2028 ceremony for achievement in stunt design.“It’s about time,” Dalton said.“I’m so excited for stunts to be recognized at that high level because of the amount of skill it takes to execute these stunts and all these films. … I hope one day I get to be in that room as well,” she added.The dream just gets bigger after working with Nolan and the cast of “The Odyssey,” one of the highest-grossing films of 2026. “Everyone’s coming together to tell the same story,” she said.
