At this point in her career, Gal Gadot is a seasoned pro when it comes to making blockbusters. The first movie she made was 2009’s Fast & Furious, which was proceeded by appearances in three of the series’ sequels, and she has been playing Wonder Woman for about half a decade now – starting with 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. As a result, she is well familiar now with the professional challenges that come with taking on such a project, but that didn’t exactly make the strenuous experience making Wonder Woman 1984 transform into a vacation.
Earlier this month Gal Gadot and director Patty Jenkins participated in roundtable interviews with members of the press following the first ever screenings of the new DC Extended Universe film, and the actress was asked what it was about the production of Wonder Woman 1984 that proved most difficult for her. While acknowledging the incredible fortune that is the opportunity to play Princess Diana of Themyscira on the big screen, she explained that what was hard about the making of the movie was the toll it took on her body. Said Gadot,
The challenging part is mostly the physical part. We shoot for such an extent; we shoot for almost eight months, five, six days a week. It's just, it's very, very, very intensive. Working on set is just delightful. I'm working with people that I love and working on a character that I feel so connected to. And it's just delightful. It's great. It's the life. And I'm getting paid for it! So it's like a dream coming true. But the hardest parts were just how demanding the shoots were and how physical it was, because it was very important for Patty that we do minimum amount of CGI.
While I made passing mention of her supporting role in the Fast and Furious movies earlier, it should be acknowledged that it is a totally different ballgame when a star is playing the titular lead in a superhero blockbuster, and so her point of view here is understandable. While Gal Gadot isn’t in every single scene of Wonder Woman 1984, she is certainly in the majority of them, and that means working long hours and heavy schedules, during which she is executing tightly choreographed action sequences and performing the same moments over and over again.
In the cases of some blockbusters actors get a bit of a rest when the decision is made to use extensive visual effects for a particular sequence, but one thing that Gal Gadot stressed about the making of Wonder Woman 1984 was its dedication to realism. Clearly there are some moments that are heavy on CGI, but Patty Jenkins mostly wanted to stay true to the titular era and film things practically whenever possible. This, as Gadot added, only made the experience more challenging. She continued,
Most of the stuff that you see – the running on Pennsylvania Avenue, the Amazon sequence, the fight with Cheetah. Most of it, it's real people doing it for real. And so for the obvious reasons it took longer to shoot, and it's very tiring on your body.
It’s exhausting work, particularly stretched out for more than half a year, but what makes it all worth it in the end is a satisfying final cut, and Gal Gadot was most definitely satiated when she had the opportunity to watch Wonder Woman 1984. Watching the film she recognizes the impact of having real actors and stunt people delivering unenhanced performances, sayomg.
You see the result and I was so satisfied with it because I was like, 'Oh my God, you can see the difference.' You can tell the difference between real action to CGI action. You can see it in the way that we move, that we hold our faces, our bodies. So that was the hardest part. The rest of it, honestly Wonder Woman feels like a second home for me.
Fans will soon have a homecoming of their very own, as three years after the release of the origin film, and following several delays Wonder Woman 1984 is now just 10 days away from being released. The blockbuster will be playing in theaters where available, and also launching on HBO Max in regions where the streaming service is live. We’ll have tons more coverage for you here on CinemaBlend for you in the coming weeks, including more from our interviews with the director and stars, so stay tuned for those features and articles, and get a hint of what to expect from the experience with my spoiler-free review:
