Why Zack Snyder Cast Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman: She “Really Held Her Own With Ben”

I feel cautiously hopeful about the casting of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman, although I have continued to see dubiousness about it around the internet since her casting — she’s never had a role quite like this before, and the reception to her initial performance here will either make or break that feature-length Wonder Woman film that’s already been in production for a couple of months. Not to mention those planned Justice League movies.

Everybody seems sold on her behind the scenes, particularly Zack Snyder, who told Film Ink,

We tested a bunch of actresses, as you can imagine. But the thing with Gal is that she’s strong, she’s beautiful, and she’s a kind person, which is interesting, but fierce at the same time. It’s that combination of being fierce but kind at the same time that we were looking for. She can get serious, but she’s amazingly fun to be around.

And by the way, she really held her own with Ben in the screen test. Ben was like, “Whoa, that girl is something else!” That was a good sign, because Ben is very tough in the scene, and he’s big and commanding. Anytime that you’re doing a test like that and you’re looking at the other person, you’re thinking, “Okay, that’s good stuff.” That was part of the process, and over time as we got to know Gal, we found out how amazing she is.

Snyder goes on to admit that Wonder Woman’s role in this movie isn’t exactly large:

Does she have as much screen time as Ben and Henry in this movie?

No, she has a cameo in this movie. No, actually… it’s bigger than a cameo. She comes in and does something.

I gotta admit, that doesn’t sound like much to me. It could be tough to tell just from “coming in and doing something” whether Gadot has the acting chops to carry a Wonder Woman film on her own. Hopefully she’ll end up with enough screen time to prove herself worthy of the role … well, assuming that she is.

(via io9, image via Screen Rant)

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