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Missed Connection: Gal Gadot

The ‘Fast and Furious’ star and Scroll crush turns 28

by
Adam Chandler
April 30, 2013

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Gal Gadot. August 2010. On a plane from Tel Aviv to New York.

I was in the middle seat, she was on the screen. I was full of Turkish food that I’d foolishly consumed before the flight. She was bantering with Vin Diesel, one of the few things in the world that I imagine would be worse than being full of Turkish food on a transatlantic flight.

In the flick, Gadot played a former (non-Israeli) Mossad agent named Gisele Yashar, who had been part of a Mexican drug cartel before joining the good guys. I played the fool, who would rather watch the fourth movie of the terrible Fast and Furious franchise than read or sleep or work.

But had I not, I would have never known about Gal Gadot–the former Miss Israel, Entourage character, and nascent addition to the Vin Diesel Hollywood Industrial Complex, which will release its sixth Fast and Furious movie next month. Gadot is the daughter of two sabras, an IDF grad, and a participant in one of the stranger Maxim Magazine endeavors: the hottest women of the IDF.

Gadot turns 28 today so, you know, happy birthday!

Adam Chandler was previously a staff writer at Tablet. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, Slate, Esquire, New York, and elsewhere. He tweets @allmychandler.