Gal Gadot (Hebrew: גל גדות) is an Israeli actress and model born on April 30, 1985 in Rosh HaAyin.
Before she shifted to acting, she represented the country in the 2004 Miss Universe pageant, and served in the Israel Defense Forces for two years. Her first acting credits date back to the Israeli soap opera Bubot with the role of Miriam "Merry" Elkayam. In 2009, she made her big screen debut as Gisele Yashar in Fast & Furious, the fourth installment of the action film franchise The Fast and the Furious.
The role that marked her big break into stardom and the one she is best known for nowadays is the DC Comics superheroine Diana of Themyscira / Wonder Woman in the cinematic DC Extended Universe, first appearing in 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice then hitting it big with her 2017 solo movie, Wonder Woman. She is the first actress to play the character in theatrically-released live-action films.note
She married Yaron Varsano, an Israeli real estate developer, in 2008. They have three daughters, born in 2011, 2017 and 2021.
Filmography
- Bubot (2007-2008) as Miriam "Merry" Elkayam
- Entourage (2009) as Lisa
- The Fast and the Furious film series as Gisele Yashar
- Fast & Furious (2009)
- Fast Five (2011)
- Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
- Fast X (2023)
- Date Night (2010) as Natanya
- Asfour (2011) as Kika
- Kicking Out Shoshana (2014) as Mirit Ben Hatush
- DC Extended Universe as Diana of Themyscira / Diana Prince / Wonder Woman
- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
- Wonder Woman (2017)
- Justice League (2017)
- Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
- Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
- SHAZAM! Fury of the Gods (2023)
- Third Wonder Woman film (TBA)
- Criminal (2016) as Jill Pope
- Triple 9 (2016) as Elena Vlaslov
- Keeping Up with the Joneses (2016) as Natalie Jones
- The Simpsons (2018) As Herself
- Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) as Shank
- Between Two Ferns: The Movie (2019) As Herself
- National Geographic Presents: Impact with Gal Gadot (2021) - host
- Red Notice (2021) as Sarah Black
- Death on the Nile (2022) as Linnet Ridgeway Doyle
- Heart of Stone (2023)
- Untitled Hedy Lamarr series (Apple TV mini-series, TBA) as Hedy Lamarr
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs live-action remake (TBA) as the Evil Queen
- Deeper (TBA) as Marion
- Cleopatra VII biopic (TBA) in the title role
Tropes & Trivia that apply to her works:
- Action Girl: Before her acting career, Gadot served in the IDF. As such, she seems to be Type Cast as them (Gisele Yashar, then Wonder Woman and Natalie Jones).
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Applies to several of her characters.
- Badass Israeli: Gisele Yashar and Natalie Jones are both kickass ex-Mossad agents.
- Cast the Runner-Up: Gal was approached for the role of Faora in Man of Steel, but declined due to her pregnancy at the time. She perfectly made up for it, as Zack Snyder later cast her as Wonder Woman in the same film universe.
- Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: She received some backlash when it was announced that she will be portraying Cleopatra VII in the upcoming Paramount biopic, with many accusations of whitewashing. However, the real Cleopatra was part of the (frequently incestuous) Greek-Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty, which would be considered white by modern standards. Although it's uncertain who her mother is, the claim that she was Egyptian or black African has never been accepted in academia and originated in a book that was published in 1946 which probably, in turn, came from a misunderstanding of William Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot:
- She shared a pretty passionate kiss with Isla Fisher as a ploy to defeat the bad guys in Keeping Up with the Joneses.
- In Wonder Woman, Diana states that she has read the nymph Clio's twelve volumes on the "pleasures of the flesh". They come to the conclusion that men are needed for reproduction but unnecessary for pleasure — she comes from an island where there's no man at all, after all.
- The kiss she shared with Kate McKinnon on Saturday Night Live when parodying Wonder Woman.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Shank, the character she voices in Ralph Breaks the Internet, is clearly modelled after her, and very possibly after Gisele Yashar, specifically.
- Meta Casting:
- Her first acting role was as a model in the Israeli telenovela Bubot.
- She served two years in the Israeli Defense Forces. This was an admitted factor in why she was cast as Wonder Woman.
- Hedy Lamarr was a Jew born in Austria and escaped the Nazis to the US before the outbreak of World War II. Gal's maternal grandmother was also a Central European Jew (born in Poland) who escaped the Nazis.
- Ms. Fanservice: Not nearly as sexualized as most, but her beauty is often noted both in-universe and out. Typically played straighter in her earlier roles. Plus there is the commercial for Gucci's Bamboo fragrance where she is seen playing the piano naked.
- Statuesque Stunner:
- She stands at about 5'10, so in her Wonder Woman wedge boots she is almost as tall as Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill.
- In Keeping Up With The Jones, she easily towers over Isla Fisher.
- Star-Making Role: Wonder Woman was her big international break, without a doubt.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Rumor has it that Gadot deliberately keeps her (very noticeable) Israeli accent while acting even characters of supposedly different nationalities. Because most people have never heard an Israeli accent, they tend to just confuse it for a "generically foreign" one that fits whichever she's supposed to be at the time (Greek, Latina, etc.)
