Gal Gadot reveals how she managed to hide her pregnancy while filming 'Wonder Woman'
It's one thing to be offered the job of playing an iconic female superhero, and quite another to pull it off and do the character justice. But unsurprisingly, it was a breeze for Gal Gadot with her portrayal of the latest live-action version of Wonder Woman. The film smashed the box office and got rave reviews from critics – quite an achievement for yet another superhero film to be churned out from DC Comics.
Gadot gave a stellar performance, and most amazingly of all, she did it all while pregnant. The 32-year-old gave birth to her second daughter Maya (with husband Yaron Versano) almost exactly a year ago, but only months prior, she was still wearing her Amazonian costume to play the part as Wonder Woman.
Gadot revealed to Marie Claire that she wanted to keep her pregnancy lowkey while filming her first scenes as the superhero in Batman V Superman. She chose to hide her morning sickness and migraines, saying that she "gutted it out". To keep the pregnancy nausea under control, she stuck to a special potion which attracted a few looks from the crew.
"I had this jug of water with huge pieces of ginger," she said. "One of the producers kept on asking, 'Why are you drinking that potato water?' They thought I'd gone Hollywood."
But a few months later when she was filming Wonder Woman, Gadot's bump was impossible to hide from the crew – and from the camera. She was five months pregnant with Maya when she was asked to return to set to film reshoots, according to Entertainment Weekly. And at five months pregnant, a woman's body certainly gives away that she is with child.
So how did they resolve the issue? Well, with a plan that was as genius as it was silly.
The way they managed to hide Gal Gadot's pregnancy was with a special costume accessory – a baby bump green screen. By cutting a hole in her costumes and covering her belly in a green material, they were able to edit out the expanse of her protruding abdomen in post-production.
"On close-up I looked very much like Wonder Woman. On wide shots I looked very funny, like Wonder Woman pregnant with Kermit the Frog," she joked.
Of course, the crew took extra precautions while filming with pregnant Gadot, especially since most of what they had to reshoot was from the final action sequences.
"She couldn’t do a huge amount of physical activity but she was being aggressive," producer Chuck Roven said. "She still had to be fierce. That was special. I’ve been doing this for a while but I’ve never that had that experience before."
The director, Patty Jenkins, also praised the actress for her persistent effort while shooting.
"She's pregnant during part of the movie, in a suit out in a field in the freezing cold in others," she said. "There are so many things we asked her to do: Now do it on one foot. Now shout while you're doing it. Now it's raining in the freezing cold and you've lost your voice, go. Every day it was a hilarious gauntlet and she would do it."
"Now, at least, we will be able to tell her daughter Maya that she’s in her mom’s stomach right then, in the middle of that battle scene."
Was there ever a more fitting person to play Wonder Woman?