Gal Gadot on ‘Heart of Stone’ and Possible Tom Cruise Team-Up (Exclusive)

“Wonder Woman” star Gal Gadot is going from superhero to super spy in her new action movie “Heart of Stone.” In the Netflix thriller out August 11, Gal plays an intelligence operative on a mission to stop a dangerous hacker.

The actress spoke with “Extra’s” Melvin Robert prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike about the film and its female-empowered, death-defying stunts!

“We really went for it,” she said. “We didn’t compromise until we got the shot we needed. It was very, very physical.”

Preparing for the action and stunts, Gal said, was “months of doing workouts and learning the different stunt choreographies and different things that we need to learn from different stunt stuff. I’m lucky to be surrounded with an incredible stunt team that I’ve gotten to work with on previous films that became like a second family to me. So, I never had a moment where I was like, ‘This is too dangerous for me.’ I knew that they were keeping me safe all the time.”

Gal is giving adrenaline junkie Tom Cruise a run for his money with the stunts, so could we ever see her team up with the action superstar?

“Tom Cruise is the master in this genre, and I think he’s a unicorn in that way. There’s only one Tom Cruise,” said Gadot. “I adore Tom. When I just started acting, I had a scene or a couple of scenes with him in a movie, ‘Knight and Day.’ I would love to do something with Tom.”

In addition to starring in “Heart of Stone,” Gal also produced the movie.

“It was an empowering, interesting, fascinating creative process, from the moment the idea was conceived through all the different decision-makings that were taken throughout the way, to sitting here and speaking to you about the movie,” said the actress on juggling both on- and off-camera duties. “I’m so happy about everything. It’s been an incredible journey.”

Gadot added that it was essential for her that her character Rachel be written as a woman instead of just gender-swapped from a male role.

“That was something that was really important for me, that we tell this story from a female perspective, because I’m playing her. And it needs to be organic and authentic to who the character really is.

“I think after the success of ‘Wonder Woman,’ I had an a-ha moment realizing there’s more space in this genre for female-led action films and that was the thing that really gave me the confidence to go for it,” she continued.

“And from the get-go, I just felt like as long as we’re going to be authentic to the characters, to the story, we’re going to make sure that the chemistry is there, the connections, the relationships, the plot makes sense. The action we knew was going to be huge from the get-go. So, it was super important for me to have both of the elements: to have the action and to have the drama.”

The hard work is certainly paying off. Next year, Gal will become the first Israeli actor to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.