Waiting For Gadot

This month, Wonder Woman finally gets her own film, and ex-soldier Gal Gadot is set to show the world how to fight like a girl.

- Allison Glock

It’s a hectic lunchtime at the Chateau Marmont when Gal Gadot arrives, stopping briefly in the patio to embrace a friend before finding her seat. As she does, another loose acquaintance pops by to admire her Burberry ankle boots, then lingers. Gadot, 32, graciously accepts the compliment, smoothing her sweater over her Wolford black pants and leaning back with an exhale familiar to any woman who has ever been in her third trimester. (Her second daughter, Maya, was born in March, joining five-year-old sister Alma.)

Her hair is pulled into a tidy ponytail, eyes lined with black liquid. The look-sharp, cosmopolitan ease is a refined contrast to the LA scene (where many adults seem to compete over who can spend the most money to dress like a child). When the visitor at last departs the table, Gadot winces, embarrassed by the unsolicited attention.

“When I first came to Los Angeles, I couldn’t read people,” she says. “I always felt there was a subtext.” It’s an opaqueness absent in her home country, where unfiltered boldness rules the day. “In Israel, people have chutzpah,” she asserts, raising a fist. “People take issue with it, but I’d rather have that than play games. Here, everyone’s like, ‘We love you; you’re so wonderful.’ I prefer to know the truth, not waste time.”