Matt Damon's Arms in One ‘Odyssey’ Scene Are a 35-Year-Old Stuntwoman's. She Started With a Band and Does 12 Chin-Ups
The arms on screen in one scene of The Odyssey belong to a 35-year-old stuntwoman. She started chin-ups with a resistance band and now does 12 in a row. Small amounts, repeated on a schedule, are the only way this gets built. Money works the same way.
By Sean Anees Saifi · Capital Wealth · Published Sunday, October 11, 2026 · Source: The Wall Street Journal, October 10–11, 2026 weekend edition, whose market figures are the Friday, October 9 close (Off Duty)
Key Points
Devyn Dalton, 35, is the stunt double whose arms stand in for Matt Damon's in one scene of The Odyssey. Damon said on a podcast that she has “the greatest arms I've ever seen.”
She trained her upper body three days a week for the film. Her favorite biceps move is the chin-up. She began with a resistance band and now does 12 in a row.
Carrie Cross is 57 and coaches fitness online from Florida. Once a week she does about 50 curls, and she posts a flex at least three times a week. A 37-year-old firefighter near Washington does 48 hammer curls once a week, down from 100.
Historian Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, author of Fit Nation, says no pill and no surgery produces sculpted biceps. The result can only be built.
A 28-year-old trainer in Austin keeps 8-pound dumbbells in her room for a few curls before a night out. Two of the women are 55 and 57, about when our Oct. 7 grip piece said muscle starts to slip.
12
chin-ups in a row for Devyn Dalton, 35, who began with a resistance band
3 days a week
her upper-body training while she prepared for The Odyssey
50
biceps curls once a week for a 57-year-old online fitness coach
48
hammer curls once a week for a 37-year-old firefighter, down from 100
In one scene of The Odyssey a stuntwoman's arms stand in for Matt Damon's, and she does 12 chin-ups in a row after starting with a band.
In one line: A 35-year-old stuntwoman's arms double for Matt Damon's. She built them three sessions a week, starting with a band, which is how savings get built too.
In one scene of The Odyssey, the arms on screen as Matt Damon's belong to someone else. They're Devyn Dalton's. She's 35, a stuntwoman, and Damon said on a podcast that she has “the greatest arms I've ever seen.” She didn't buy them. She started chin-ups with a resistance band for help. Now she does 12 in a row.
Caitlin Carlson's story in this weekend's Off Duty is about women showing off their biceps, from the gym to Instagram. Rosie the Riveter flexed in World War II ads to pull women into factory jobs. Today's flex is simpler. It says I'm strong. Carrie Cross is 57 and coaches fitness online from Florida. Once a week she does about 50 biceps curls. At least three times a week she posts a flex. People sometimes grab her arm to check it's real. A 37-year-old firefighter near Washington once did 100 curls a week. Now it's 48 hammer curls, one day a week, and the men at her station still notice.
No pill, no surgery
Arms show the work faster than other muscles, some of the women told the Journal. A few sets of curls or pull-ups show up in a way a squat doesn't. A 28-year-old trainer in Austin keeps 8-pound dumbbells in her bedroom for a quick set before she heads out for the night. A 55-year-old former model in New York works her arms because people see them, and nobody sees her abs. Natalia Mehlman Petrzela is a history professor at the New School who wrote Fit Nation. She says different parts of the body get their turn in the spotlight in different eras. On biceps she's blunt. “There's no pill, there's no surgery that gets you sculpted biceps,” she said. Dalton's version is a routine. Upper body three days a week while she trained for the film, and the chin-up as her favorite move.
Our read
We file this under Behavioral, with Time Value of Money, M3, underneath. Look at the amounts. About 50 curls once a week. Forty-eight hammer curls once a week. Three sessions a week and a band until the bar is possible. Nobody here did anything heroic on any single day. They did something small, on a schedule, and didn't stop. The historian's line is the money line too. There's no pill for this and nothing you can buy. A result that can only be built rewards the person who starts early and keeps going. That's the automatic contribution in another currency. A fixed amount from every paycheck, left alone, does the same quiet work the dumbbells do.
For readers in their 50s, two of these women are 55 and 57. That's also the strength the cover story's games measure, and the reserve our Oct. 7 grip piece worried about. The dumbbells and the deposits both work best before you need them. The umbrella is cheapest on a sunny day.
What It Means For Your Portfolio
Hold. Small, fixed, repeated. Start before you need it.
No portfolio action. The planning takeaway is that results you can't buy get built by small amounts on a fixed schedule, in the gym and in the savings account.
General planning principles, not advice for anyone in particular. Set one contribution that leaves every paycheck before you see it, and raise it a notch each year. Treat the gym the same way, with two or three short sessions a week you don't negotiate with.
If you're in your 50s, that's also the decade our Oct. 7 piece said muscle starts to slip. Ask your doctor, then start with a band or a light weight. Nobody's judging the first rep.
