Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) Wiki Biography

✅ Her first name means wave in Hebrew and her surname means riverbanks, and her parents changed the family name from Greenstein to Gadot before she was born.

✅ As a child she attended speech therapy for a weak voice, where she learned breathing techniques.

✅ She trained in ballet, hip-hop and jazz for twelve years and once considered becoming a choreographer.

✅ Her maternal grandfather, Abraham Weiss, was a Holocaust survivor who was imprisoned at Auschwitz.

✅ She worked at Burger King after finishing high school, before she entered the Miss Israel pageant.

✅ She won Miss Israel in 2004 and represented Israel at Miss Universe 2004 in Ecuador, and has said she deliberately rebelled there to avoid winning.

✅ She served two years in the Israel Defense Forces as a combat trainer, teaching gymnastics and calisthenics.

✅ A 2007 Maxim photo shoot of female Israeli soldiers, which included her, was featured on the cover of the New York Post and raised her profile.

✅ She auditioned unsuccessfully for Camille Montes in Quantum of Solace, and about two months later made her acting debut in the Israeli drama Bubot.

✅ She was chosen over six other actresses to play Gisele Yashar in Fast & Furious (2009).

✅ She turned down the role of Faora-Ul in Man of Steel (2013) because she was pregnant, and the part went to Antje Traue.

✅ She declined the lead role in the 2016 Ben-Hur remake because of scheduling conflicts with Batman v Superman. She reportedly trained six hours a day for six months to prepare for Wonder Woman.

✅ She was reportedly paid $300,000 for Wonder Woman (2017) and about $10 million for Wonder Woman 1984 (2020).

✅ She was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2017.

✅ She voiced Shank, a character modeled after her, in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018).

✅ Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018, and Forbes ranked her the third-highest-paid actress in 2020 with $31.5 million in annual earnings.

✅ She and her husband founded the production company Pilot Wave in October 2019, and Heart of Stone (2023) was its first developed and produced project.

✅ She and her husband launched the mac and cheese brand Goodles in November 2021.

✅ She became the first Israeli actor to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which she officially received by 18 March 2025.

✅ On 5 February 2024, during the eighth month of her pregnancy, she was diagnosed with cerebral venous thrombosis, gave birth to her daughter Ori the same day, and underwent emergency surgery.

✅ The Genesis Prize Foundation named her its 2026 laureate on 11 November 2025, and she pledged to donate the $1 million prize to Israeli organizations.

✅ Her $1 million Genesis Prize grew into a $3 million trauma-care funding initiative after $2 million in matching donations.

✅ Her thriller The Runner, directed by Kevin Macdonald, began streaming on Prime Video on 2 September 2026.

✅ She has said on a podcast that returning for a third Wonder Woman film doesn't work for (her) life anymore now that she has four children.