Wonderful woman Gal Gadot has lived one interesting life. She was a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, named Miss Israel in 2004, worked as a model, and her filmography is near spotless, because most of her roles were in Fast & Furious movies (pretend Knight and Day never happened). Also, that whole playing the world’s most famous female superhero thing.
Gadot, who will soon star alongside Jon Hamm in Keeping Up with the Joneses, is featured in next month’s issue of Interview, where she talked about not wanting to be a Bond girl.
WAYNE: How did you get started?
GADOT: I was Miss Israel in 2004. That’s how I started modeling. And then I had to quit modeling to do my service in the army for two years. Then I went to law and international relations school. And everything went great until this casting director flew in from England looking for the new Bond girl. She saw my card on the board and she wanted to see me. My agent called me and said, “You have an audition for James Bond. They’re looking for the girl.” And I told him, “Listen, it’s all in English. I’m not an actress. I’m not going to go.” He thought I was kidding with him, because who would say no to—
WAYNE: James Bond.
GADOT: The day of the audition, he called me and asked where I was. And I told him, “I’m in school. I told you I’m not going to go.” And he was like, “What? I can’t believe you meant it, because the casting director is waiting for you. Please, you’ve got to go. Just out of respect, go.” I didn’t learn the scenes. And then I got to the room and I told the casting director, “I’m not an actress. I wasn’t planning on coming here. I apologize for not coming prepared because I’m very professional no matter what I do.” She said, “Well, I’m going to be here for four more hours. Just go through the scenes, and I’ll guide you through it.”
Two hours later I got back into the room and we had very good chemistry, the casting director and I. Then I had a callback and another callback and another callback and a match. And throughout this whole process, I realized it takes a lot to act, and it’s so much more interesting than going to law school. I didn’t get the part eventually, but I told my agent, “If anything else comes up, let me know. I’m intrigued.” A month later, I landed the lead role for a TV series in Israel. And two months later, the same casting director cast me for Fast & Furious. The rest is history. (Via)
To recap: Gadot nearly said “nah, I’m good” to playing a Bond girl, but ended up drinking Coronas with Vin Diesel, The Rock, and Michelle Rodriguez. She’s living the dream.
(Via Interview)
