It would be easy to sum up Gal Gadot’s career with two words — Wonder Woman — but her journey to Hollywood is less straightforward than a twirl of a golden lasso. While she was cast to inspire young women’s dreams, Gadot’s dreams, initially, were rather different. She was born in Israel at 18 years old and entered beauty pageants (“going to be nice to tell my grandkids”), winning Miss Israel in 2004.
After that, she enlisted as a combat trainer in Israel’s mandatory military service; around this time, at 20, she met her husband, Jaron Varsano. She then studied law at university, but the call of the pretty business continued. Signing with an acting agent, she was cast in 2009’s Fast & Furious and began pinging between Tel Aviv and Los Angeles. In 2016, Gadot landed the role of Diana Prince, a.k.a. Wonder Woman, in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and the rest is box office history.
Starring in this month’s Kenneth Branagh murder mystery Death on the Nile, Gadot is also developing Wonder Woman 3, a biopic of Cleopatra, in which she will star. She’s as no-bullshit as her roles are escapist — and yes, she’ll poke fun at “Imagine” too.
