Known for her work in Wonder Woman, Fast and Furious, and Red Alert, behind the actress lies an unusual story.
Gadot was born on April 30, 1985 in Petah Tikva, Israel. She is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. As she once recounted, her parents were just children when they managed to escape one of the greatest atrocities in history. As fate would have it, Irit Weiss and Michael Gadot got together as a teenager so Gal and her sister, Dana, were born as a result of that love.
Gal took her first steps in the middle when she was little. Her mother always worried about her look, she emphasized her elegance and did not hesitate to write her down when she found out about her in a beauty contest. She saw a future in modeling in the girl. In addition to competing in these contests, at the same time, the girl took dance classes without neglecting school. If there was something that her parents did not negotiate for anything in the world, it was the study, even when in their adolescence they already perceived a possible career in front of the cameras.
As a girl, she was a great athlete. Supported by her mother, who was a Physical Education teacher, she played several sports and excelled in basketball. Her height of 1.78 helped her not only on the catwalks but also on the court, under the basket, capturing rebounds. Not long ago she commented that she didn't have a good aim and that her attack wasn't her thing, but defending against her, she stood out from her. She enjoyed this, making sport a lifestyle.
As the economy was tight at home, she barely finished school Gal worked as a babysitter, and then she was a cashier in a fast food place. Right at that moment she began to transcend. In 2004, at just 18 years old, she won Miss Israel, and that opened up a place for her to represent the country at Miss Universe. In that contest, she did not end up obtaining an important place, although she would do so at work. There she was seen by several brands that took an interest in her. Gadot became the visible face of fashion brands like Gucci but also technology, such as Huawei.
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, the actress assured that she had no interest in staying with the contest, and she made sure that it was, putting her own obstacles. It is a discipline in which certain rules must be followed throughout the day, not only at the time of presentation to the jury. “I knew that I didn't want to win Miss Universe. It wasn't my thing. For an 18-year-old girl it seemed like too much responsibility,” Gal explained, adding that the rules the contestants had to follow were ridiculous. “Who wears a long dress to breakfast?” she noted, by way of example. And she was not willing to follow those mandates, which is why she did not attend breakfast dressed as the other applicants did, thereby provoking an entire jury that followed her in the sun and in the shade.
In her greatest splendor, triumphing in Milan and Paris, fashion capitals, Gadot received a call from her: she was 20 years old when she was told that she should return to Israel to do military service. She fulfilled her duty by enlisting immediately, not caring at all about putting her artistic career on hold. “There are two years in which you have to give something to your country. It is not about one, it is about learning discipline and respect, ”she emphasized.
Gal herself learned tactical maneuvers, weapons handling, and self-defense. Without imagining it at the time, she meant an enrichment for her career as an actress, which she gave life to after leaving the Army. In all the action movies that would come, like three installments of the Fast and Furious saga, but also Red Alert and Implacable Mind, to name a few of them, you can appreciate his training, developing movements in action scenes that are beyond credible.
“Being in the Israeli Defense Forces was a great experience because I learned basic combat fundamentals; It would have been very difficult for me (in the cinema) to adapt my body to certain movements if I had not gone through that pressure. One often thinks that certain moments in life can be totally useless when in reality they are lessons that can open huge doors for you in the future, ”she said about these years that marked her, and for the better.
At the performance, she walked in without looking for him. She was 23 years old when she was told if she wanted to audition to be a Bond Girl, taking advantage of the fact that a movie in the Agent 007 saga would be filmed in Israel. At first, she refused because she was studying Law, but her friends convinced her, and she went to the casting. She was not selected. “I didn't get the role of Bond Girl but I was cast in Fast and Furious, and that's how it all started,” she recalled of those beginnings.
The successes were happening, but there came a time when Gal Gadot got tired of Hollywood and everything he represents. In 2017, she seriously thought about leaving everything and going back to Israel to resume her university studies. "I always missed the food of my country and the sea," she confessed. But her fate had something else in store for her and so it was that, when she was already maturing her decision, she was offered to make the Wonder Woman movie. The previous year she and I had tried on the heroine costume in Batman vs Superman: The Origin of Justice but with a secondary role. Now the film would be all his, and this caused a change in his plans: Gadot accepted the project.
Shortly after, he would tell that the first time he became a hero was at the age of 12 when he was with his mother on the beach and saw that a six-year-old boy was drowning, without anyone intervening to rescue him. But Gal did not hesitate, she went into the sea and rescued him. "At that moment I felt super responsible and strong," she would say proudly.
To put herself in the role of Wonder Woman, she followed a rigorous eating plan and more intense training to gain muscle mass. She started lifting weights and taking classes in fencing, kickboxing, capoeira, and jiu-jitsu. All of that paid off: the film was a huge success, grossing over $800 million, and Gadot shone on the big screen, receiving rave reviews.
