Christopher Nolan has made a big deal about keeping The Odyssey as practical as possible, and it turns out that even the terrifying giant Laestrygonians weren’t brought to life with loads of CGI. Universal During Odysseus’ journey home from the Trojan War, he and his crew stop at a series of islands looking for supplies. One of those pit stops quickly turns into a nightmare when the men wander into a towering forest and come face-to-face with the Laestrygonians, a race of enormous giants who completely dwarf the crew on screen. Watching the film, it genuinely looks like the creatures are several times taller than Odysseus. But according to Matt Damon, the effect came from an old-school filmmaking technique rather than visual effects. Universal Speaking to Happy Sad Confused, Damon explained: “When we did the force perspective stuff with the Laestrygonians, there were these stuntmen who were all 7 feet (tall). Then they got stuntmen who were under 5 feet, and so my double was a woman. So there are these shots in the movie where you see these giants looming over me.” It’s basically the same forced perspective trick famously used throughout The Lord of the Rings, where carefully positioned cameras make characters appear dramatically different in size without relying on CGI. X Damon also revealed that because of the height difference needed for the illusion, his stunt double was actually stunt performer Devyn Dalton. She has since shared a behind-the-scenes look on Instagram showing the performers who played the Laestrygonians, and the contrast between the towering seven-foot stunt performers and the much shorter doubles is honestly pretty unbelievable. I really thought the silver giants were CGI but nolan used real 7ft men, and that wasn’t even Matt Damon, it was a 5ft woman 😠pic.twitter.com/HGWP7ilMf9 — Fahhh (@yowtfahhh) July 22, 2026 It just goes to show how far Nolan went to keep The Odyssey looking as real as possible, even when the film needed a whole army of giants. For all the latest film and TV updates and hot takes, like our Facebook page. Featured image credit: Universal Post navigation Next storyPrevious story
