Gal Gadot is now synonymous with “Wonder Woman” and big movie glamor. And, well, the move for glamorous movie actors nowadays is to then star in TV shows. Still, the majority of Gadot’s upcoming projects (aside from an exciting Apple TV+ limited series about Jewish inventor and actress Hedy Lamarr) are still films, including “Cleopatra,” emulating the movie that made another gorgeous Jewish woman, Elizabeth Taylor, (even more) iconic, and “Irena Sendler,” in which she’ll pay tribute to the righteous among nations Polish woman who saved thousands of Jewish children during the Holocaust (oh, and there’s that “Snow White” adaptation, but we don’t need to talk about that).
But many might not know that Gadot did start her career by starring in some really interesting TV shows, including “Entourage” where you can see her as Adrian Grenier’s arm candy and joining in on jokes about sex with Seth Rogen (has this scene aged badly? of course it has). I remember the waves this guest role made in Israel at the time, where, before she changed the game completely for actors from the Jewish state, Gadot became one of the very few Israeli stars to have garnered small roles in big American productions.
Before all that, in Israel, Gadot was mostly know as the former Miss Israel of 2004. But she did star in a handful of TV shows. She played a religious girl who escapes to Tel Aviv from Safed in a 2008 telenovela called “Dolls” (you absolutely need to check out this quintessential telenovela scene she was in).
In 2011, she starred in the second season of “Asfur,” from the makers of Netflix’s “Bros,” the streaming platform’s first original Israeli show.
And a year later, she played Yamit in the first and only season of “Kathmandu,” now streaming on Izzy, and watching it now, you can absolutely see that she’s destined for greatness. “Kathmandu” is a surprisingly great if occasionally not PC show about an Orthodox couple, Mushki (Nitzan Levratovsky) and Shmulik (Michael Moshonov), who open the first Chabad house in Nepal. The entire cast is pretty incredible, but Gadot? She already had that old Hollywood glamor, those Audrey Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor looks where her angular face and sharp eyes tell the most captivating story. When she speaks, there’s a deep and melodic quality to her voice that is equally entrancing.
Gadot’s character is a woman on a mission, trying to find the sister who went backpacking in Nepal and left her parents an e-mail to not look for her. She and Mushki form a friendship, while she and Giani (Liron Levo), an ex-soldier turned hostel owner with a troubled past, are mutually drawn to one another. Gadot is not a central character exactly (she’s not in the first two episodes), but you get a glimpse of her ability to switch from Hebrew to English seamlessly and to play a wide range of feelings (in one episode she accidentally trips on mushrooms).The entire show is kind of an amazing time capsule — you’ll see internet cafes, old phones and e-mail platforms, a way to travel that has changed so much in the past decade, where now influencers would be making TikToks with that background of the Himalayas, but also of the state of mind of Israelis traveling to Nepal, often to escape from something terribly haunting at home.Episodes are still airing weekly on Izzy, a streaming platform full of delightful Israeli content, which recently premiered one of the best Israeli shows ever made, the army comedy “Dismissed” (but more on that later). It’s an incredible glimpse into the early career of an actress who changed the lives of little and grown girls everywhere as “Wonder Woman.” I still remember that all-encompassing joy I felt after watching her in the film for the first time, and watching her be a badass woman traveling to Nepal by herself? It kind of reminded me of that.
Also, did you know she once played a mermaid on stage for a Hanukkah musical? Yes, she did, and you can absolutely watch a clip of it and read my full analysis of this peak cultural moment.
