If there’s one actress busy in Hollywood, when the strike is over, that actress is Gal Gadot. In addition to still officially owning the role of Wonder Woman in DC, Gal has already finished recording as The Evil Queen in Snow White, was recording the continuation of Red Alert, and is in the pre-production of two biographies: the mini-series of Apple TV Plus about the youth of Hedy Lamarr, where of course she will play the legendary actress, as she prepares for the previously controversial, Cleopatra. Action, drama, and classic: there will be no other actress with greater exposure than her.

The yet-unnamed series, called The Hedy Lamarr Project, features Gal as the European actress who fled the War and went to Hollywood, already a major international movie star. The original proposal was from Showtime and would have eight episodes, but after 2 years, it was transferred to AppleTV +. It will show Hedy’s youth, how she lived with the Nazi high command, and how she created the technology now known as the cell phone. In the United States, she was a star, but she was even more than that, as the exclusive interview with her biographer already posted in Miscelana proves. The showrunner is Sarah Sutherland, from The Affair. The series will cover 30 years of the life of the legendary actress. “An epic tale of an immigrant woman ahead of Her Time and very much a Victim of It,” was released two years ago.

There’s a curiosity here, forgetting the physical difference between Hedy and Gal, which is stark. Disney’s 1937 feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which was still being finalized in live action in 2023, with Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, used the image of none other than Hedy Lamarr – with her white skin and red lipstick – as the basis for the image of the young princess. It’s fun to imagine that after impersonating the villain (whose image was inspired by Joan Crawford), Gal becomes Hedy on screen!

Cleopatra, on the other hand, promises a lot of early criticism before it hits the screens. The most famous last attempt on the life of the Egyptian Queen turned 60 in 2023. The Netflix docuseries insisting on portraying her as black – to the offense of the Egyptians – had no better reception than the announcement of the Israeli actress for the role. Even more, it announces that they are going to review the way in which she has always been portrayed on screen. And “revising” Cleopatra makes historians’ hair stand on end. Even more so as cinema contributed to minimally polarizing the Queen’s appearance, today the heart of every discussion about her.

The direction of the film, which was Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman), is now with Kari Skogland, from Handmaid’s Tale and Vikings, keeping screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis, which makes clear the position that the Queen will be revisited through the eyes of women. In other words, nothing to reduce her to a seductress or manipulator, her leadership attributes will be highlighted. However, given the massive negative reaction when the announcement was made, in 2020, they took their foot off the accelerator, according to Gal, because the responsibility is great and they will be careful. The actors’ and screenwriters’ strikes also put a brake on production, which should only hit the screens, at this rate, in or after 2026.

“It is a big task. I don’t want [to rush] into doing it – it’s something that needs… a lot of thought and care because it’s Cleopatra. We have amazing writers working on the script – before and after the writers’ strike – like Laeta Kalogridis. It’s a beautiful script. We are not rushing because you have to be responsible when dealing with such an incredible, iconic, legendary woman,” she told the actress in a recent interview.

If you are curious to understand and know the true story of Cleopatra, I recommend Curtis Ryan Woodside’s documentary, which is one of the most complete and accurate ever made about the Queen of Egypt. Click here to see it.

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