Gal Gadot – It’s time for a female Jason Bourne

The actress who played Wonder Woman wants to take spy thrillers to the next level, with female leads.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Gal Gadot says it’s time for women to take the lead roles in action-packed spy thrillers, and she’s showing the way in a Netflix movie she produced and starred in that is being released this Friday.

In “Heart of Stone,” the Israeli actress who became a superstar playing Wonder Woman, portrays Rachel Stone, a CIA operative who goes rogue to find and protect from terrorists an artificial intelligence system called “The Heart,” critical to a global peacekeeping organization that is loyal to its credo rather than any particular nation.

“The idea was conceived in 2017 after the first Wonder Woman was out, and it was a huge success,” Gadot told entertainment news site Digital Spy. “That was an ‘a-ha moment’ for me, when I said: ‘Wait a second, there’s men and women, they all like the movie, there’s an audience for these types of films.'”

She believes it can be the start of a franchise as successful as others in the genre (think James Bond, Jason Bourne and Mission Impossible), but even better.

“It’s much more grounded, it’s rawer, it’s grittier, it’s just more real. And the tone of it, it’s completely fresh and different and of our world. And that was something I was very passionate about,” she said.

She also wanted to take full advantage of being a woman.

“The idea for me from the get-go was to create a character that would be inspiring but not perfect in any way: multilayered, emotional, go through some journeys, while everything is taking place in an environment that is filled with action,” she said.

In a separate interview, her costar, Jamie Dornan, told the site that this was the right direction for action movies.

“It’s much more where we need to be headed at the moment, after decades and decades of male-driven spy thrillers,” he said. Such movies can be improved by “giv[ing] those missions to a woman,” he noted, instead of relegating them to having “vacuous eye-candy” roles they have mainly played in the genre.

Gadot was also the right person for the job, he added, considering that she “has been at the forefront” of leading these kinds of movies, which also include the 2021 Netflix action hit “Red Notice,” in which she costarred with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

“Gal’s very at home in this world, she’s at home in kicking ass, and it’s very cool to see because she does it with utter professionalism, but also with a real sense of fun,” Dornan said.

Indian actress Alia Bhatt also has a prominent action role in the movie, as a hacker on the bad guy side, in what is her Hollywood debut after a decade of local mega-success. Gadot told the Hindustan Times that Bhatt is “super ready” to break into the American market, and she is ready to help her “sister” in any way and any time.

Even if “Heart of Stone” takes off, Gadot dropped excellent news for the myriad fans of her “old” role, saying that she is in discussions with DC Studios to make a third Wonder Woman movie, whom she “loves portraying, it’s so close to and dear to my heart.”

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