Last week, the actor Devyn Dalton received, quite possibly, the world’s biggest compliment.
She was in New Zealand filming her next project, when she was awakened at 4 a.m. by the buzz of her phone. “I was like, ‘What is going on?’ It just blew up — my phone was going crazy,” Dalton, 34, said.
What was going on was that the actor Matt Damon, who plays Odysseus in Christopher Nolan’s interpretation of Homer’s epic tale, had said in an interview that she had “the greatest arms I have ever seen.” Her friends were sending her clips of the interview as it was ripping through the internet.
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.
It’s a bit of movie magic, Damon explained. To film the battle against the man-eating Laestrygonians, Nolan used a technique called “forced perspective” to make Odysseus’ army appear minuscule.
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.
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. Her more recent credits include “Weapons” and “The Last of Us.”
She has found herself in such high-voltage action sequences that she can never tell her mother what she’s working on because “it freaks her out,” Dalton said. “I just tell her ‘I’m going to work.’”
“The Odyssey” is the first time Dalton has done stunts for a male A-lister — a rare feat in an industry where, according to the SAG-AFTRA union, women make up little more than 20 percent of performers.
In a conversation with The New York Times, edited and condensed for clarity, she discussed her latest role and her other stunt work.
Is it common practice for a woman to double for a male lead? Have you done that before?
Definitely not common. I think men have been doubling for women for longer in the industry. But with stunts, the main thing is, who is the best fit for what they’re looking for, physically? And, most importantly, who has the specific skill set needed? Increasingly, with wardrobe, hair and makeup, we get to do movie magic and transform people, and it doesn’t matter so much about gender. This is the first time doubling for a Hollywood leading man. I never thought I would have that on my résumé.
Have you received this kind of specific shout-out from a leading actor before?
It is uncommon because, even though you’re in front of the camera, if you’re doubling and you’ve done your job right, the audience shouldn’t know it’s you. Part of our job is being hidden. I have to say a huge thank-you to Matt for being so generous.
Were you and Damon on set together working on that fight choreography?
Yeah. Most of the time, on any film I’ve been on, you end up working with the actor and being there on the same day because you’re both a part of a sequence and you’re both portraying the same character.
When doubling for someone, I’ll always specifically watch like, what foot did they walk with first? People also just have little tendencies, like they might lean to one side or move a certain way. So I study all of that and try to mimic it exactly. That’s what sells it so well on camera.
Did you need any special training for this role?
This has been years of work building out my skills. I try to be very versatile by doing a lot of different training methods to just stay ready, so that whenever the phone rings, I’m like, “OK, I’m good to go.”
That’s the thing with stunts — the training never ends. In the past, I’ve done a few really cool underwater fight scenes, and so I took courses that focused on water safety, breath holding and cold water because a lot of the times you’re not working in a warm situation and so you have to learn how to manage the temperature. And you’re in costume and makeup and you have to be underwater with your eyes open.
Are there stunts you’ve had to do that scared you?
I think the fear for me always comes from a place of setting very high standards for myself. I always want to do a really good job.
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