Smoothest relationship: Gal Gadot on her bond with ‘Heart of Stone’ co-star Alia Bhatt

PTI, Aug 8, 2023, 2:37 PM IST

”She’s amazing, we hit it from the get go,” says Hollywood star Gal Gadot, describing her bond with actor Alia Bhatt on the sets of their upcoming action-thriller ”Heart of Stone”.

Gadot, who has also produced the movie, said she found that they both share a lot during her interactions with the Indian star, who makes her Hollywood debut with the Netflix film.

”She’s amazing, we hit it from the get go. I think we share so much in common for the fact that I’m from Israel and she’s from India. We’re both now making this film that is global and American.

”And we’re both very dedicated and hard workers in what we do, but we also are very family oriented… It was like the smoothest getting into a relationship I’ve had,” Gadot told PTI in a group interview.

”Heart of Stone” follows Gadot’s Rachel Stone, a member of an elusive and mysterious group of elite spies called the Charter.

When the shadowy organisation’s cutting-edge weapon, an AI-esque technological core called the Heart, is stolen by hacker Keya Dhawan (Bhatt), Stone embarks on a globetrotting adventure to prevent the weapon from falling into the wrong hands and saving the day.

Gadot said she enjoyed exploring the complex dynamic between the two main characters in the Tom Harper directorial that pits the two actors against each other. ”Once you have a partner that you can trust, you enjoy the push and pull between the characters, it gives you a fight that has a weight. And you know that she’s not faking and she’s affected in the right way from me and vice versa.

”It’s just delicious. It’s a delightful way to work. And I definitely had that with Alia,” she added.

The 38-year-old actor, most famous for her role of superhero Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman in many DC-Warner Bros movies, described her ”Heart of Stone” character as a person of ”many contradictions”.

”I enjoyed playing this character so much. She’s a character of many contradictions. On one hand, she thrives on adrenaline. She likes the mission. She’s an incredible secret agent.

”But at the same time, she’s a loose cannon. She’s having a hard time working within the system and following the rules. She’s wild and she’s not allowed to engage with people. And one thing she really wants is to engage with people and have these human connections in her life.” Gadot said she’s a lot like Stone in real life.

”I think that the thing that really guided her was her instincts and the fact that she needs to follow her heart, literally, and listen to her guts. And that’s something I try to do in my own life as well,” she added.

In the film, the cornerstone of the Charter is its cutting-edge weapon called the Heart, a powerful AI which the organisation uses to tackle potential global threats and even find out the odds on the success in neutralising them. The AI keeps track of people’s entire online history, thus empowering it to even predict the future.

Hollywood is no stranger to the theme of artificial intelligence and how it has the ability to change the course of the world.

The genre is populated by films like ”Terminator” franchise, Steven Spielberg’s ”A.I. Artificial Intelligence”, Will Smith’s ”I, Robot”, Keanu Reeves-led ”The Matrix” series and even lower-budget films like ”Ex Machina” and ”Her”.

But with the discourse around AI now hitting the headlines on a day-to-day basis, ”Heart of Stone”, just like Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise’s latest ”Mission: Impossible” film ”Dead Reckoning Part One”, feels timely.

And even Gadot agrees.

”When we started to conceptualize the film, we spoke to professional people that come from this industry and what makes sense for the Charter and what makes sense for the heart and how it operates and what’s real and what’s not and how it should look like.

”And we knew that everyone was talking about AI for the past many years, but we never anticipated that once the movie is going to come out, it’s going to be the hottest subject,” the actor said.

On a personal level, Gadot is fascinated and curious about AI and its potential but the actor said she is also afraid of it.

”When you hear people like the CEO of ChatGPT talking about the need for regulations and how responsible we have to be with it, we really need to take this seriously sooner rather than later,” she added.

”Heart of Stone”, which also stars Jamie Dornan, Sophie Okonedo and Matthias Schweighofer, will debut on Netflix on Friday.

The film has a screenplay by Greg Rucka and Allison Schroeder, and is produced by Gadot, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Jaron Varsano, Bonnie Curtis and Julie Lynn.