Althouse: "When we did... the Laestrygonians… there were these stuntmen who were all 7 feet and then they got stunt men who were under 5 feet. My double was a woman...."

July 22, 2026

"When we did... the Laestrygonians… there were these stuntmen who were all 7 feet and then they got stunt men who were under 5 feet. My double was a woman...."

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Devyn Dalton, the stunt double, is 4'6". Damon is said to be 5'10".

17 comments:

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: This is the kind of moviemaking “magic” that should IMO not be shared while the film is in theaters.; 7/22/26, 6:44 AM
tim maguire said...: "Matt Damon's stunt double was a woman"

Sounds about right.

There are many camera shots in a movie where you can't really tell who the person is. You just assume it's the actor because it's the character, but as I understand it, they swap the high-salary stars out for other people as often as possible because it's cheaper and less risky. It would be a disaster if your 30 million dollar lead gets injured, and injuries are always possible.; 7/22/26, 6:45 AM
planetgeo said...: I saw the movie and had high expectations, but given the current capabilities of CGI I was frankly underwhelmed by the quality of scenes that required it. Most notably, the ones involving Cyclops as well as Scylla and Charybdis. I suspect that the span and variety of the adventures probably strained the budget and so they squeezed too many in and sacrificed some quality. Even with that, yes, it was about a half hour too long.

Very few epic movies can sustain the sweep of the written work. "Gone with the Wind" and "Dr. Zhivago" may be among the few that could.; 7/22/26, 7:07 AM
Disparity of Cult said...: "Matt Damon's stunt double was a woman"

Has this been verified with Ketanji Brown Jackson?; 7/22/26, 7:07 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: Apparently it doesn't take a whole lot to get a hug from Matt Damon.; 7/22/26, 7:33 AM
Christopher B said...: Does the difference in height between Dalton and Damon really matter? All the Greeks were supposed to look small against the Laestrygonian giants. The important comparison was between Dalton and the other stunt doubles.; 7/22/26, 7:34 AM
Maynard said...: We are going to see the movie on Friday. It will be my life long Democrat wife, my moderate stepson and his idiot leftwing girlfriend. The discussion afterwards should be interesting.; 7/22/26, 7:44 AM
Temujin said...: I'm going to see this next week and I cannot wait. Perhaps the one book that stuck with me more than any other throughout my life. And there have been some pretty bad tries at making a movie of it. Almost everything I've read and heard says it is a remarkable film.
Cannot wait. And yes, I'll get through the Elliot Page moments without falling apart.; 7/22/26, 7:55 AM
Howard said...: The first rule of the sausage factory is that we don't talk about what goes on inside the sausage factory...; 7/22/26, 8:42 AM
Ralph L said...: "Is said to be 5'10"." That's my impression, that he's shorter than advertised. Needs DeNiro's platform shoes.; 7/22/26, 8:44 AM
chuck said...: I was frankly underwhelmed by the quality of scenes that required it.

Elon posted that Grok Imagine will do the entire Odyssey in a year :) Grok Imagine, the rhapsode.; 7/22/26, 8:49 AM
n.n said...: From a distance, objects converge to a point. That said, the short and tall of gender is sex-correlated attributes.; 7/22/26, 8:50 AM
Lazarus said...: Ben Affleck wasn't available?

It makes sense that male actors are short because directors and audiences don't want them towering over the actresses in the romantic scenes. Someone commented elsewhere that a tiny stunt double would make the giant monsters in the Odyssey look even bigger.; 7/22/26, 9:04 AM
Ann Althouse said...: ""Is said to be 5'10"." That's my impression, that he's shorter than advertised."

And yet he has the nerve to stand around with Ben Affleck, who is 6'4".; 7/22/26, 10:07 AM
mccullough said...: Matt Damon is about 5’10. He’d wake up at about 5’10 and 1/4 and be a bit under 5’10 in the afternoon and close to 5’9 and 1/2 at bed time. So 5’10 is fair. Although other “5’10” guys might look slightly taller.

Ben Affleck isn’t 6’4. He wakes up a bit under 6’3 and is 6’2 at bedtime. So Affleck is about 4.5 inches taller than Damon.

Neither of them wear obnoxious height boosting shoes and lifts like some actors or celebrities.

Pro athletes are measured in the morning most of the time and those measurements are often published by the leagues.

These are not the measurements listed by the teams.

Larry Bird was actually 6’9. Magic Johnson was listed at 6’9 and everyone could see that Bird was taller. As Pat Riley said, Magic isn’t even 6’8 and Jordan isn’t even 6’5. But Kareem is 7’2; 7/22/26, 4:23 PM
rehajm said...: My better started dragging me to pilates duets and my height improved by an inch and a half…; 7/22/26, 9:29 PM
rehajm said...: …I was gonna say grew and inch and a half but knowing you kids..; 7/22/26, 9:30 PM