“If The Rock and John Cena and Jason Momoa and people like that can make careers off their muscles, why can’t a tiny woman as well?” she tells RNZ’s Nine to Noon.
A “jack of all trades” who danced competitively as a child and voiced characters in the TV series My Little Pony, Dalton got her first break as a stunt person playing apes in the Planet of the Apes trilogy.
Standing at just 137cm, she has often worked as a stunt double for children but in recent years branched out into adult roles.
The Odyssey came Dalton’s way, she says, because she happened to match exactly what Nolan wanted for lead actor Damon’s double – “someone who had very fit arms and who was shorter and could handle fight choreography”.
“It’s really about like, who has the skill set, who can perform the stunt safely, who matches what they need? Why can’t that be a woman?”
Matt Damon in The Odyssey.
First meeting Damon, Dalton says she wanted to impress the 55-year-old actor with her arms, and succeeded.
“I built these for you,” she told him, while flexing her biceps.
Although from her regular workout routine, Dalton pretty much already had the powerful arms required to match his in The Odyssey, the performer says in the lead-up to filming, she went into “more of a bodybuilding mode”.
She also focused on excellent nutrition, and right before the shoot, cut her calorie intake a little – “nothing dangerous, not like fighters do in UFC” – to make her muscles pop out.
To others keen to develop their own set of formidable guns, or just start building arm definition, Dalton says boxing is great.
“Not only is it fun, you get to let off steam as well, and it really does help your arms start to take a really good shape.”
Arm strengthening exercises with your own body weight – such as pull-ups, at first using a resistance band – are also effective and underrated, she says.
Devyn Dalton with fellow stunt actor Stephen Adentan. Photo / @stephenadentan
“It’s amazing what push-ups can do, and there’s so many different variations.”
Dalton hopes that more athletic female bodies will be seen in future films after Damon’s “very generous” shoutout of her physique on the podcast Happy Sad Confused.
“I feel strong and so beautiful, really, with my muscles. So to be able to have those celebrated, and it really has been amazing.
“I can only hope that it’s going to continue to open more doors and that I’ll be able to play some other really cool roles that celebrate my muscles.”
Although she stunt-doubled for Damon in a film the action hero has described as the “most challenging” of his career, Dalton admits her strength has been tested by the power of the wind in Wellington, where she’s currently filming a top-secret project.
Living in Vancouver, the fitness fan is used to going out for a run, rain or shine, but Wellington’s wind is “definitely something new”.
“Being a tiny, tiny lady, I thought that I was actually going to blow away.”