Gal Gadot Is Unafraid to Face Industry Injustice!

She’s best known for playing a heroine who can teleport and fly. But the star’s biggest superpower is her willingness to stand up—for herself and others

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If only it were all that easy. After being cast in 2009’s Fast & Furious, she kept auditioning until “I got tired of trying,” she says. Just when she’d almost given up, she landed the part of Wonder Woman. As a kid in Israel, Gadot was too young to watch the Lynda Carter TV version; she describes her young self as“[not] a big fan of comic books.” But she knew that a female-fronted superhero movie would be a watershed moment. A blockbuster centered on the character was “overdue,” she says. “People were craving her story.” For the first film, her salary was a mere (by Hollywood standards) $300,000. At the time, “I was extremely grateful. That was my big break.” Then the movie made over $800 million. When the sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, came along, “if you look at it li

ke a card game, my hand got better. I was willing to drop the ball and not do it if I wasn’t paid fairly.” She made a reported 30-plus times that salary for the follow-up. Given her aversion to conflict, was she scared about playing hardball? “No, because when I’m righteous, I’m also right.”