This week Israeli actress Gal Gadot, 32, made it on People’s list of “25 Women Changing the World” and she is featured on the cover of Elle’s December 2017 issue. So she’s made it, in case you hadn’t realized.
A veteran of the Israel Defense Forces, Gadot told People about her experience of serving shaped her:
There is something very important and unique about the fact that you’re putting your life on hold and you’re giving back to your country. There is something beautiful about that selflessness.
My service was for two years, but in an ideal world I would love for all the countries to not have an army so we don’t have to fight each other. But that’s not the case — we’re still not in an ideal world. There is still a long way to go.
The former Miss Israel probably knows a thing or two about selflessness. She’s a mother of two, after all.
And the star of “Wonder Woman” and “Justice League,” empowering women and promoting feminism, is important to her, which she also touched on in the People interview:
It’s amazing that girls are exposed to the visual of strong women that are fighting so beautifully and having this amazing sisterhood relationship and caring to each other, but yet they can hold a sword and ride a horse. But you can’t only empower the women. You‘ve got to educate the men too. This movie is for everyone. It’s for boys to go to the movies and see that women can be amazing and badass and strong and inspiring, and not only me.
It would be awesome if people weren’t [in a] hurry to judge each other and would be able to put themselves in the other people’s shoes. People have their very solid opinions very quickly, and sometimes it’s based on something that is inaccurate.
An interesting thing about Gadot’s success, however, is the fact that it didn’t necessarily come easily, especially since she doesn’t fit into a mold as an immigrant and a non-native English speaker. She told Elle:
When I was based in Israel, way before “Wonder Woman,” way before anything, I went to my dialogue coach and I told her, ‘My objective is within a year to speak completely American English.’ She said, ‘Gal, dear’— she’s like sixtysomething years old, adorable, full of compassion—she said, ‘Gal, it won’t happen.’ I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? I’m gonna come for three days a week for a few hours, like we make a boot camp out of it!’ She said, ‘But why would you want to do it?’ I said, ‘I’m such a niche, with my accent. I have to play the international girl. There’s no international girl in every movie! This narrows my opportunity.’
From where we sit, it’s amazing to see someone who doesn’t fit into a neat box find success in Hollywood.
