Two women team up to make 'Wonder Woman' soar

LOS ANGELES — If Wonder Woman fulfills the promise of the Amazons and delivers the needed summer hit for DC Comics and Warner Bros., the film will have two women to thank: star Gal Gadot, a former Israeli model, and director Patty Jenkins, best known for the 2003's Monster.

"It's stunning for me, as somebody who's one of those fans who's been wanting to see it for a long, long time," Jenkins said at a recent press event. "I have not been able to believe that we were the people who were going to be so honored to get to do it. It's so exciting that they're about to see it."

"It was amazing. Overwhelming," Gadot said of her experience. "I took a very great role, and it's been so far so good. It's a dream coming true. Working on this project has been such a phenomenal, unique, special experience — and now, with some of the reactions and feedback that we've been getting … I just feel like [saying] 'Thank you!' … I am superexcited, and I'm very, very happy."

Jenkins said that bringing the best of the comic book version of Diana Prince to the big screen was the main goal.

"I think one of the things that [Gal and I] both connected on and that we both believe in to a big extent is the magic of Wonder Woman — she was everything," Jenkins said. "She was incredibly strong, but she also stands for something [that is] the opposite of violence — which is love, truth, compassion. … That's why she's magical, and that's why all of us have been so drawn to her for so long. For her to lose any of that, for any reason, would have been a huge shame."

"That is one of her greatest strengths," Gadot concurred. "I remember when [Patty] and I first met, we were having dinner in this restaurant, and we started to talk about our families and about life. I told her about my grandfather, who was a Holocaust survivor — and he had taught me that no matter how dark you get in life, you have to find your inner life.

"I think that compassion is a big thing, and it was very important for both of us that this movie has a message that is not necessarily in the superhero movies, which usually have the bad guys being killed by the good guys and then it ends," Gadot said. "We wanted to have a profound message that everyone can relate to and take home this message and actually practice it."

Jenkins said she recognized that a film like Wonder Woman had to have kick-ass action scenes that excited both genders, but no punching in the face and no warrior cry.

"You really don't see" face-punching, Jenkins said. "I was not feeling that. I felt the Amazons would find other ways to get the job done. It's why I didn't give them a battle cry. Because I didn't see them as screamers. I felt their heart would come from a different place. But they would get the job done.

"All of that was fascinating to me."

Gadot said that Jenkins had intense attention to detail and that the result was an incredible experience onscreen.

"Patty was always very aggressive, whether it was the fight sequences or the emotional or humanistic scenes," Gadot said. "She was there shoulder to shoulder with us."