Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot has revealed how wearing her golden, skin-tight superhero suit makes her feel sexy and powerful in real life.
The 35-year-old has the lead role in Wonder Woman 1984 — one of the first new films to be released in cinemas post Covid-19 — and her incarnation of Diana Prince could not be further from the big pants, silver cuffs and basque worn by Lynda Carter in the 1970s TV original.
Now the former Miss Israel, whose film is due out next month, has told how slipping into the sexy costume has even made her feel stronger and more confident at home.
Gal said: “There’s something about this suit, about the golden armour, that immediately puts you in character. It looks good and I feel sexy wearing it. It feels amazing.
“I can’t imagine my life without Wonder Woman.
“It’s been so intense and so powerful and had such an impact on my personal life.”
She first appeared as the superhero in the 2016 film Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice.
Then she went on to take the lead role in the 2017 movie Wonder Woman, as well as playing the character in 2017’s Justice League superhero flick.
To get the look this time round, Gal tried on different warrior suits — admitting her latest one fitted too snugly and almost ended in disaster.
She said: “This is a different costume (to the ones they used to use). It takes some getting used to. It was so tight that I almost passed out.”
But it hasn’t all been plain sailing. Gal almost quit Hollywood before landing the iconic role and also had the tough job of juggling acting with motherhood.
She has two daughters, Maya, three, and Alma, eight, with businessman husband Jaron Varsano, 45.
On Tuesday, Gal went viral on social media with a nod to the hotly anticipated film release by posting a photo of herself wearing her Wonder Woman headband while filming — but with a mask on her face with the caption #wearamask.
The trailer for the movie, also starring Chris Pine, is set in the 1980s to a remix of Blue Monday by New Order, and has had more than 30million views on YouTube.
The role has made Gal one of Hollywood’s hottest leading ladies.
But it has been a long road to success. Before finding stardom she was a tomboy, who at age 18 won the 2004 Miss Israel pageant, then served in the Israeli military as a combat fitness instructor for two years.
She enrolled in law school in Tel Aviv before beginning modelling in the early 2000s.
One day a casting director asked if she could audition for the Bond girl role in Quantum Of Solace. She didn’t get the part but was asked to audition for 2009’s Fast & Furious. Gal got the role because she knew her way around a military weapon.
But because she had also had so many refusals she almost quit the US.
Gal said: “Before I got Wonder Woman I was thinking about never coming back to Los Angeles. I thought I’d stay in Israel, work as an actress, go back to university and do something else because there had been so many ‘No’s.” She added: “You go to the audition and you have a callback, then another callback and then a camera set up and people are telling you your life will change if you get this part. And then you don’t get it.” Incredibly, she didn’t know in her first Wonder Woman audition what role she was being considered for.
She has previously said: “Zack Snyder (a producer) called me and was like, ‘So do you know what you’re testing for?’ I said, ‘No’. He said, ‘Well I’m not sure if you have her in Israel, but did you hear about Wonder Woman?’”
Today she says the character “stands for love and hope and acceptance and fighting evil”.
But it also stands for femininity and strength — and her military background means she has that in spades. She does most of her own stunts and trained for six months to build muscle so she could do them.
Gal, who is also a producer on the latest film, said: “If we have to choose . . . if (the stunt) is something that can be done for real or it can be CGI, we’ll go for the real version. But I do a lot of it.
“I do have two stunt girls working with me because it is extremely physical. It’s like a superhero, we’re doing it for real.
“We had wires, rigs for miles — so I can run at the same speed that Usain Bolt ran in the Olympics.
“I found myself with many different spine injuries, but at the same time it’s worth it. I physically prepped for six months, then we shoot for eight whole months and it’s a lot of work. There’s always this fear of like, ‘Oh, I really hope it’s going to be what we want this to be’. Watching the movie now a few times, I’m so happy with the way we did it.”
Despite the gruelling scenes, it was the British weather Gal found hardest to cope with because of the skimpy outfit she had to wear while filming in freezing temperatures on location.
She said: “I felt so cold. I’m not sure who came up with the idea of shooting during the English winter.”
With her superheroine and other acting roles, and like all working mums at times, Gal says it can be hard to strike the right balance.
She said: “The toughest challenge maybe is just balancing between work and personal life.” But she says her Amazon Princess character — who will take on a deadly new enemy in Wonder Woman 1984 — is a part of who she is now.
And one of the unexpected joys of her work is meeting die-hard fans at comic hero events.
Gal said: “I love seeing people dressed up as me.
‘Made me cry’
“I love that people get to do it and I love that they enjoy doing that — and I enjoy watching them.
“And the fact that they are women and men, it’s incredible and it’s great. It’s another way to celebrate this character.”
Gal has another film due out in October, the murder mystery Death On The Nile, starring alongside Kenneth Branagh, Annette Bening and Russell Brand, proving she is one of the stars of the moment. Wonder Woman in 2017 won praise as being groundbreaking for its female representation in superhero movies. Gal says the character is a part of her DNA, revealing that when she watched herself in the latest story she was moved to tears.
She said: “Watching now, I’m just so happy and so grateful that it was all worth it and that we used this amazing opportunity to tell the Wonder Woman story once again. And we’ve done it in a whole new way on its own.
“I can’t tell you what happened in the movie that made me cry, I can just say it was at the very beginning.
“All of a sudden I wasn’t Gal, Wonder Woman, the actress, who was on set when everything was shot. I was that little girl from a suburb in Israel watching over myself in the cinema, which is in itself a surreal experience — watching this thing and seeing this amazing woman, girl, doing these amazing things.
“And I did not expect that. On the set, I didn’t even notice. It was very effective and that’s the moment where it’s like, ‘This is why it’s so frickin’ important. This is why it’s not like any other movie’.”
She added: “We’re doing something that we hope is going to have an impact but it’s very impactful on us already.
“So, touch wood, it’s a good sign, and I hope the audience will have a similar reaction.”
Gal and her outfit are bound to have audiences gripped.
