Why Gal Gadot turned down a role in James Bond: “I don’t want to waste your time”
Success and controversy. These two words have defined the career of Gal Gadot. A modern sex symbol, she has formed a cornerstone of two highly profitable film franchises, ‘Fast & Furious’ and the DC Extended Universe. However, away from the screen, her outspoken advocacy for her native Israel has fractured her fanbase.
Prior to ascending to big screen glory, Gadot served in the Israeli military (another cause for concern amongst certain fans) and was a model, winning the title of ‘Miss Israel’ in 2004. This led to her getting noticed by several casting directors, who sent a flurry of high-profile roles her way. She eventually settled on the part of Gisele Yashar in Fast & Furious, which is confusingly the fourth edition of the series, but she could have made her debut in a different, arguably more prestigious franchise.
“After my service in the military and modelling, I started university and studied law,” Gadot told InStyle. She attributed this decision to her love of the TV show Ally McBeal, a comedy drama starring Calista Flockhart as a young lawyer. “There was a casting director there looking for the new Bond girl,” she continued. “She had seen my card at my modelling agency. I was like, ‘Listen, I’m not an actress. I’m here because my agent told me you really wanted to see me, but I don’t want to waste your time.’ I didn’t get the part, but I started working with acting coaches and auditioning in Israel. I got my first role for a TV show, and that same casting director remembered me and hired me for Fast & Furious. Then I started my affair with acting.”
The part Gadot was up for was Camille Montes, the main female character in Quantum of Solace. A Bolivian secret agent, Montes teams up with Daniel Craig’s 007 to take down a plot to control her country’s water supply. If you think casting an Israeli woman to play a South American character wouldn’t have worked, then don’t worry, because the role eventually went to Olga Kurylenko, who is from Ukraine.
Gadot wouldn’t have been the first Miss Israel to appear in a Bond movie. Aliza Gur, who won the competition in 1960, played Vida, a brief love interest of Sean Connery’s in From Russia with Love. In the 1967 spoof version of Casino Royale, Dahlia Lavi, another Israeli model-turned-actor played ‘The Detainer’, one of the British agents working alongside David Niven’s unofficial interpretation of the superspy.
When she finally saw Quantum of Solace, Gadot must have been over the moon that she stood her ground and said no. The movie turned out to be a complete dud, hampered by the Writers Guild of America strike that rocked Hollywood between late 2007 and early 2008. A meandering script, lack of memorable moments, and uninspiring villain were all picked up on by reviewers, and whilst some people don’t think it’s that bad, it is generally agreed to be somewhere in the bottom half of the MI6 agent’s adventures.
Most people would say that turning down an opportunity to be in a James Bond movie was absolutely insane, but Gadot knew that she wasn’t ready to take on such a major part so early in her career. Given how both her career and Quantum of Solace turned out, she clearly made the right call.
