"I'm feeling fine," Gal Gadot tells me with a glowing smile, and instinctively, folds her hands over her belly.
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"Motherhood is the best thing I've done, the project of my life. I'm very connected to the girls, and I take care that we have open communication and always talk about feelings. Sometimes I let up and leave them alone, because I've learned that over-involvement can create problems, too.
"Sometimes I can be a hysterical mom and sometimes a funny mom. We laugh a lot. I can be patient, but when I lose it, it's not good. I think that every mother can identify with that. The moment you have a baby, you get a huge bag of guilt, and that's something I deal with all the time. But I've realized that I can only try to be the best version of a mother, so I try to do my best and give them everything I can. Every morning, when I get out of bed, I say 'Modeh Ani.' You can't take anything for granted."
In a Zoom interview with TV host Jimmy Kimmel, Gadot told him how she and her husband, Yaron Varsano, told Alma, nine, and Maya, four, that they would soon be getting another sister.
"We bought cupcakes for everyone in the family, including the dog, and when one was left, I asked the girls if they knew whose it was. They threw out names of family members, and then I pointed to my belly. Alma shouted, 'Noooo!'' But she got used to the idea, and she's excited. I asked Maya if she knows what mommy has in her belly, and she said, 'Yes, a cupcake!'"
Gadot hinted at her pregnancy back at the Golden Globe Awards ceremony, when she arrived wearing a broad white tunic gown. Speculation on gossip sites spread, and the next day she posted a picture to Instagram of herself, her daughters, and her husband, all with their hands on her belly.
She just celebrated her 36th birthday, and shared pictures from her party in Los Angeles with her 52 million followers.
"You know, not a lot of people know what life in Israel is like," she says. "I still get comments from people who think that people in Israel walk around with Uzis, ready for battle. What the world is exposed to is what they see on the news. I'm not an ambassador for Israel, that's not a title I can take on, but it's important to me that people know how amazing and beautiful our country is, how full of good people, how calming the beach is and how good the hummus is. I miss Israel. I'd like to raise my daughters there."
Q: Your career is taking you far away from your homeland.
"There is a time for everything. Now it's right for us to be here, and for now we're keeping our house in Neve Tzedek. We haven't sold anything, we haven't moved out a sofa or a single plate. Everything is waiting for us when we come to visit, even the photographers. Our girls are in private Jewish schools, the older one in elementary school and the little one in nursery school. They learn about Jewish holidays there, we speak Hebrew at home, and are very connected to Israel through friends and family. It's very clear for us."
The year of COVID shut down Gadot's plans in one fell swoop. Last March, she was supposed to be in Atlanta to shoot the action thriller "Red Notice" with Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds, as well as meet up with her parents, Irit and Michael, to celebrate her father's 60th birthday. Instead, she stayed in her home in the Hollywood Hills.
Later on, she initiated a clip of Hollywood stars performing John Lennon's "Imagine" as a message of solidarity. But criticism was quick to arrive, with many claiming that the celebrities were detached from the reality of a raging pandemic, people losing their nearest and dearest, and medical staff buckling under the pressure.
In June 2020, Gadot arrived in Israel with her husband and her daughters, and spent two and a half months here. At the beginning of September, they all flew to Atlanta, where she filmed "Red Notice," which is expected to debut on Netflix this coming year.
Q: What was it like working during COVID?
"It was complicated. Because one on hand, it was fun working again, being with people and doing what you love. On the other, you're working with team members who need to be isolated and far from their families for many weeks. Everyone is in protective gear, those space suits, and the vibe is different.
"So there was a sense of tension, it wasn't a free and easy set, where people come and give high-fives and say 'Good morning.' It was a much more cautious set. But you get used to it. People are very adaptable animals and in the end we manage and find solutions. I'm waiting for all this to be behind us and we can get go back to doing everything, like we did before."
Speaking to Kimmel, Gadot was asked how Israel had managed to defeat COVID. She explained that Israel was home to 9 million people, compared to 350 million in the US, and told him that people had willingly been vaccinated and felt as if they were having "holy water" injected into their veins. Israelis were enjoying their lives again, she told him, adding that she was "proud and jealous."
"Wonder Woman 1984" was supposed to have been released in June 2020, but was repeatedly postponed because theaters were closed.
"First of all, the movie wasn't the top priority," Gadot says. "Health is the most important thing. There was a lot of fear. No one knew what this virus was, how much it would cost us, and what was going to happen. There was mostly fear of the unknown."
After five postponements, Warner Brothers decided to release the movie on Christmas in any theaters that were open, as well as on HBO Max streaming. Hollywood saw the step as a strategic loss to leverage the new service, but the 17.2 million Americans who signed up for HBO Max in the last quarter of 2020 isn't even close to the 203 million subscribers Netflix has worldwide, or Disney Plus's 100 million.
Another blow came when audiences stayed away from opening weekend. Later came lukewarm reviews and a lack of enthusiasm on social media. Thus far, the movies has generated about $170 million in ticket sales, after an investment of $200 million and tens of millions more spent on publicity. Hollywood Reporter estimated that the decision to stream the film would cost Warner Brothers at least $100 million. The first "Wonder Woman" made $820 million.
Still, the studio has announced a third film in the franchise, which will also go on director Patty Jenkins' busy schedule.
"If someone had told me a year ago that this is what would happen, that the movie would come out on HBO Max in the US, I would have said, no way, we would never let that happen. But COVID is COVID, and we're living in a somewhat different reality. The movie felt in a really karmic way more relevant than ever, much more than we could have expected when we wrote and shot it. The thought that people here in American could watch it with their families during the holidays warmed my heart, especially when the numbers here were insane and I didn't know when they'd drop.
"Everywhere else in the world, it was released in movie theaters only. We need to be flexible. This entire time, we've been learning to be more and more flexible, and I only hope it will give people two and a half hours break from thinking about the difficult day-to-day reality, and give them two and a half hours of entertainment and enjoyment. If that happens – I've done my bit.
"I'm waiting for them to open the movie theaters in Israel, so everyone can see the movie. I'm calling on people in Israel – wait patiently and don't download it illegally, this film is made to be watched on the big screen. And if you don't mind, don't do spoilers. The film was shot in 2018, it was ready at the start of 2020, and came out only at the end of 2020. So even we actors had to be patient. I hope that in Israel people will manage to hold off and see it on the big screen."
Q: Did you feel more responsible for the second film?
"In general, when you work on a sequel, you always need it to be a bit better than the first one, because we need to raise the bar. Especially given the expectations: a lot of eyes were on us, and there was a lot of pressure. In the script and story development stages we spent a lot of time on questions about what the narrative would be and who the characters would be, but at the end of the day, you just need to tune out all the noise and focus on the story, the characters, and the film, and do your best. You can't do anything more.
"I came to shoot every day for eight months, and I really did my best. I gave it my all, and I felt that the new film touched me. I hope that the viewers will feel the same. This is the film I'm proudest of so far."
Q: How did the story come into being?
"Patty and I started to talk about the story while we were filming the first 'Wonder Woman.' That film was the hero's origin story – Diana Prince becomes Wonder Woman, and she's naïve, and doesn't understand the complexities of human beings. She's not ready. There was something very pure and refreshing about it. I started like that, and it was a lot of fun.
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"But we felt that there were a lot of new places in the character that we wanted to explore, so the second film started to come together. We talked about the other things we wanted to feel and experience with Diana. So her character in the new film is pretty different from what it was in the first one. This time, she's much more mature, much more sophisticated, and understands the complexities of human beings. She also shares the perspective and suffering of other humans.
"This time, the move has a lot of color, life, music, and fun, and filming it was an amazing experience. We aren't in the war atmosphere of the first film. When I put on the Wonder Woman costume again, as uncomfortable as it is, I felt like I was back home.
"My family, as well as Patty and Kristin Wiig's [who plays the villain, Cheetah] became one big family. Like a commune. We were all in London, which became our second home. We filmed both movies in the Warner studios in London.
"My older daughter is a good friend of Lily Aspell, the actress who plays Diana Prince as a child in both movies. Lily is three or four years older than she is, and she's such a sweet kid, talented and good. They love each other, they play together, and they both like to ride horses and do gymnastics."
Q: Does your older daughter see you as Wonder Woman?
"Not at all. For her, I'm mom, who asks her to do something a million times before she does it."
Q: Does she want to follow in your footsteps?
"She's very talented and self-confident. Right now she's into being a researcher when she's grownup, or a cowgirl. She really loves riding horses. Maya, my younger, asks me, 'Mom, are you going to work?' and when I say yes, she answers, 'Then I'm going to work too, I'm Wonder Woman, too.'"
Q: Do you feel the burden of representing women in film?
"Yes, but the stories that I'm personally attracted to are about strong women. That's what inspires me, these are the stories I want to hear. I'm a person who likes to hear women talk about how they did it, and how they handle careers and motherhood. I'm very in favor of activity, and very in favor of empowerment. I want to provide a platform for things I see as important, and if I have the opportunity to shine a spotlight on stories like these, I need to do it."
Last month, National Geographic's digital platform launched another empowerment project that Gadot spearheaded, called "Impact" – a series of short documentary films that tell stories of young women breaking barriers all over the world.
"In 2017, the moment 'Wonder Woman' came out and responses starting coming in, I started to realize the influence I had on young people," Gadot said at a panel to promote "Impact." She told the audience that she had realized she had a responsibility to be "true" about everything she put into the world on social media and in interviews.
"After 'Wonder Woman,' I realized I had a chance to get to people, and I wanted to use my stage to get to as many people as possible and shed light on women's amazing stories. They are all heroes, my Wonder Women. All I do is show up at the film set, go into the dressing room, put on a costume and hold a sword. It's pretend. They are really there, on the ground, sweating and doing everything they can to make the world a better place. We live in such a dark, challenging reality, especially this past year, that we wanted to create balance and bring something good into the world. Maybe it will ignite something and spur get people going to do something good in the world.
"There are endless stories to tell… What the women who appear in 'Impact' have in common is that they all come from tough circumstances – violence, poverty, trauma, discrimination, or natural disasters. Still, these circumstances prompted them to take action. I've very lucky that I was born and raised in a healthy environment, in a normal family. My biggest challenge has been to overcome fear, and I always see that as a challenge. But I'm thankful for the life I have, and for not having had to deal with the issues these women did."
Gadot's schedule is a busy one, including a number of projects that she and her husband are co-producing. There is the spy thriller "Heart of Stone," a kind of female James Bond, which could become a franchise; a biographical film about Irina Sandler, a Righteous Among the Nations who saved thousands of Jewish children during the Holocaust; a science-fiction rom-com titled "Meet Me in Another Life," a miniseries for Apple TV about Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr; and following in Elizabeth Taylor's footsteps in another version of the Cleopatra story.
The Cleopatra role sparked a wave of controversy over the choice of a Jewish Israeli actress to play an Egyptian queen. Gadot replies, "If we stick to the facts, Cleopatra was Macedonian. We looked for a Macedonian actress who would be right, and there wasn't one. I'm passionate about the role. And Cleopatra was a historic icon I'm a fan of."
