Gal Gadot is the ultimate badass [1], on screen and off screen. Not only is she breaking gender barriers [2] as Wonder Woman, but before she dove into the acting world [3], she was a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces. After being named Miss Israel [4] in 2004 (yep, she did that, too), Gal was conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces (conscription is mandatory in Israel for both men and women), where she served two years [5] as a physical fitness specialist and taught gymnastics and calisthenics. "The soldiers loved me because I made them fit," she told Maxim in 2007.
As it turns out, Gal's military background also helped her [7] break into the acting world. In a 2011 interview with Forward, Gal mentioned that it was a big reason director Justin Lin cast her as Gisele in Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6, saying, "I think the main reason was that Justin really liked that I was in the Israeli military, and he wanted to use my knowledge of weapons."