Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot made a rare remark on her family life while discussing how motherhood reframed her perspective of life while gracing the cover of Vogue Hong Kong’s July issue.
When asked about raising her three daughters, Alma, 11, Maya, five, and Daniella, one, with her husband, Jaron Varsano, the 38-year-old actress revealed the ‘biggest thing that changed’ was learning ‘it’s not just about me.’
‘I’m not the most important thing in the world. They are. And there’s something just simply healthy about the fact that it’s not all about you. It puts everything in perspective,’ she said of her family. ‘And you love, like you’ve never loved before. They’re everything to me, I’ll do anything for them.’
The former Miss Israel went on to credit her little girls for teaching her how ‘to keep on going, even when’ she is ‘so exhausted’ and ‘didn’t sleep at night and had to shoot in the morning.’
‘They taught me that I can do much more than I thought I could,’ she raved. ‘I went to university to study law, but I wanted to continue becoming an actress. My husband Jaron gave me all the support to pursue any of these avenues. As long as you’re going to do what you want to do, then you’re giving your children the best example because kids learn the best not by what you tell them, but by what you model to them.’
She went on to note that she believes that the ‘more centered you are with yourself, the better of a model you are with your children.’
As for who her personal ‘Wonder Woman’ is, Gadot answered her mother, Irit Gadot, who worked as a high school physical education teacher.
‘It’s a cliché of an answer, I know. But I have such an incredible force of a mum that raised us to be grateful,’ the Israeli beauty told the publication. And, I think that grateful people are very happy because they are always happy with what they have.’
Gal insisted that her mom taught her ‘to be grateful and to dare.’
‘She always put such good healthy seeds of confidence and self empowerment in me and my sister and she is my true wonder woman. And she is just such a good person too,’ the mother-of-three raved.
During the interview, Gal also teased her next role in Netflix’s upcoming action film, Heart of Stone.
‘I’m a big fan of Mission Impossible and Bond movies”, Gal shares. “As a girl, I never had the opportunity to watch myself in one of those. I was always wondering if there’s room for something like that, but female driven,’ she said.
Her trailblazing character, Rachel Stone, from Heart of Stone, is an international intelligence agent, who is on a race to stop a hacker from stealing its most valuable and dangerous weapon.
‘They do want to see movies with women, if the story is good, if the action is there, if it makes sense,’ Gal explained. ‘They’re all for it.’
While speaking about filming action scenes, the actress pointed out that her background in dance has been a huge help.
‘It’s choreography, they call it action choreography. I love it. You play with your body, you play with your brain,’ she said. ‘I really enjoy this part. It takes a village and a lot of professionals to shoot action, and to do it in the biggest, edgiest way.’
Gal also pointed out that she has a ‘team of stunt women’ that she takes ‘everywhere’ with her, even though she does ‘as much of the action as’ they let her.
‘It’s important for me to do this, because I feel like action and the performance is made not just with the choreography but also by the intention of the action,’ she stated. ‘And to me, it’s so important to have both. I’m lucky to have such a wonderful team of professionals surrounding me. It’s all about the people. In everything that you do in life, no matter what field, it’s all about the people.’
When discussing which types of roles she enjoys playing the most, Gal said she does not ‘have a preferred type of character.’
‘I think it was so much fun to play the Evil Queen. There was something so delicious with this part because it’s a fairy tale. It’s the first Disney villain. And because it’s a musical, I could stretch my performance and make it so much more dramatic and so much more animated, that it was just simply delightful,’ she said.
Gal added: ‘I enjoyed it, and I changed my voice and I did all these different things. And it was just super fun, and I can’t wait to watch it. I can’t wait to see how you know how it all turns out.’
The performer, who is set to star in Kari Skogland’s highly-anticipated biopic Cleopatra, said her story is the ‘perfect example of a story’ that she wants to tell.
After reading books about the late Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, Gal said she said: ‘Wow, that’s fascinating.’
She also stressed that her portrayal will go beyond just Cleopatra’s reputation as a ‘seductive woman, who had an affair with Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony.’
‘The truth is, there’s so much more to her. This woman was so ahead of her time. Egypt and what Egypt was back then, was still futuristic to where we are today. I can’t say much. But to me, I’m so passionate to tell her story and to bring justice to this character, and her legacy and celebrate her and her legacy,’ Gal informed readers. ‘We have a beautiful script, and I cannot wait to share this story with the world and change the narrative of Cleopatra simply being a seductor.’
On Thursday, the five-foot-ten model shared a picture of her Vogue cover, shot by photographer Greg Swales, with her more than 105 million Instagram followers.
‘Thank you for having me @VogueHongKong,’ she captioned the image, which showed her dripping in jewels from Tiffany & Co.
Another cover image featured her smoldering at the camera while rocking a figure-hugging black gown and matching gloves.
Additionally, the star shared a behind-the-scenes video from her photo shoot while rocking a black bandeau top and wrist full of stacked gold bracelets.