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
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.”