Gal Gadot

Gal Gadot (pronounced [ˈɡal ɡaˈdot]; born 30 April 1985) is an Israeli actress. She gained recognition for portraying Wonder Woman in the DC Extended Universe films (2016–2023). In 2018, Gadot was named one of Time's 100 most influential people and ranked by Forbes as the tenth-highest-paid actress, later rising to third in 2020. She became the first Israeli actor to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2025.

Gadot grew up in Rosh HaAyin and first gained attention locally after winning Miss Israel 2004, followed by two years of service in the Israel Defense Forces as a combat trainer. During this time, she participated in a Maxim photo shoot that boosted her public profile, resulting in her beginning to model and endorse various brands. Shortly after, she made her television debut in the Israeli drama Bubot in 2008, followed by her film debut in a supporting role as Gisele Yashar in Fast & Furious (2009), reprising it in multiple sequels (2011–2023).

Gadot first portrayed Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman (2016). The success of the film led to her starring in Wonder Woman (2017), which became a major box office hit. She also reprised the role in Justice League (2017) and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), the latter of which she also co-produced. Since then, she has starred in Red Notice (2021), Death on the Nile (2022), and Heart of Stone (2023), which she co-produced. In 2025 she portrayed the Evil Queen in Snow White and Gemma Donati in In the Hand of Dante.

Beyond acting, Gadot and her husband have co-founded a film production company, launched a food brand, and invested in Israeli startups. She is widely celebrated in Israel as a national icon and ambassador. However, her strong support for the Israeli military and her advocacy regarding a hostage crisis have sparked both praise and criticism.

Gal Gadot was born on 30 April 1985 in Petah Tikva, where she initially lived at Stampfer street. She was born to Jewish parents of Ashkenazi descent; her mother's roots are Czech and Polish, while her father's are Austrian, Russian, and German. Her parents, Michael, an engineer, and Irit, a physical education teacher, hebraized their surname from "Greenstein" to "Gadot" before her birth. In Hebrew, her first name means "wave", and her surname translates to "riverbanks". She has a younger sister, Dana.

Her father is a sixth-generation Sabra, and one of his ancestors was the first chemist at Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem, while her mother is a first-generation Sabra and the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Her maternal grandfather, Abraham Weiss, was born as Adolf Weiss, in the village of Munkács, Czechoslovakia in 1928. At 13, when Nazi Germany invaded, his father died in the army and he, his mother, and his brother were sent to Auschwitz, where the latter two perished in the gas chamber. Gadot's maternal grandmother, however, managed to escape Europe before World War II. Abraham immigrated alone to Jaffa, where he built a life. He later served in the Golani Brigade; in his later years, Abraham joined Israel Defense Forces (IDF) expeditions to share his first-hand Holocaust testimony.

In 1993, at the age of eight, Gadot and her family moved to the Givat Tal neighborhood of Rosh HaAyin, where she grew up, in what she described as a "very Jewish, Israeli family environment". As a child, she struggled with a weak voice and attended speech therapy, where she learned proper breathing techniques. Encouraged by her mother to be active from a young age, Gadot took up swimming at four and later played tennis. She joined the local volleyball and basketball teams, soccer-team cheerleader, and trained in ballet, hip-hop, and jazz for 12 years; at one point, Gadot considered a career as a choreographer.

At 11, she visited Holocaust memorial sites in Poland to learn about Auschwitz and Majdanek. Reflecting on the experience, she recalled: "I, an entitled child, felt the suffering the Muselmann experienced back then." At 12, she was invited to enter the Girl of the Year [he] (Hebrew: נערת השנה‎) competition but declined, initially dismissed modeling as a career, but later realized it is a fun job that makes great money and offers exciting experiences.