Matt Damon says his Odyssey stunt double deserves an arm salute
Damon said a female stunt performer doubled for him in a Laestrygonians scene and had “the greatest arms I’ve ever seen.”
By Bianca Rossi · Entertainment Editor
2 min read
Matt Damon says one of the most talked-about sets of arms in “The Odyssey” did not belong to him in every shot.
During an appearance on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, Damon said a female stunt performer doubled for him while the film staged scenes involving Odysseus and the Laestrygonians, the giant figures from the Greek epic.
Damon described the sequence as a forced-perspective setup. According to him, the production used stunt performers of very different heights to create the scale illusion: some were around seven feet tall, while others were under five feet.
“My double was a woman, a female stunt performer who had the greatest arms I’ve ever seen,” Damon said on the podcast.
He said he first met her in the catering tent and thanked her for the physical work she had done for the role. Damon said he hugged her when they met.
The actor also pointed to specific shots where the double appears. “There are those shots where you see these giants looming over me [and that’s her],” Damon said.
Damon still made clear that most of the arm work audiences see was his own. “It was almost 100% my arms in the movie, but you got to give it up where it’s due,” he said.
Damon’s Odysseus shape-up
The stunt-double reveal comes after Damon previously discussed the training and diet that went into playing Odysseus on the “New Heights” podcast.
In that interview, Damon said he got down to 167 pounds while making “The Odyssey.” He said Nolan wanted him to look “lean but strong” for the role.
Damon said he had typically weighed somewhere between 185 and 200 pounds before the film. He told “New Heights” that he had not been as light as 167 pounds since high school.
“I was in really good shape. I lost a lot of weight,” Damon said. He added that, because of something he had done with his doctor, he stopped eating gluten while preparing for and shooting the movie.
Damon summed up the transformation as the result of “a lot of training and a really strict diet.”
The actor’s comments put a bit of behind-the-scenes credit on the crew work behind the big-screen mythology. Damon may have carried nearly all of the visible biceps himself, by his own account, but he said the Laestrygonians scene also belongs in part to the female stunt performer who stepped into Odysseus’ place.
This story draws on original reporting from Variety.