Alia Bhatt is the latest Bollywood A-lister to make her Hollywood debut, and she is doing it in style, with Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot in the Netflix thriller Heart of Stone, set for release on August 11.
Talking about her Indian co-star, the Israeli actress said, “She’s amazing; we hit it from the get go.” Gadot, who has also produced the movie, said, “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.”
Speaking to the Press Trust of India in a group interview, Gadot said about Alia, “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.”
Heart of Stone follows Gal 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 (Alia Bhatt), the lead character embarks on a globetrotting adventure to prevent the weapon from falling into the wrong hands and saving the day.
Gadot said that she enjoyed exploring the complex dynamic between the two main characters in the Tom Harper directorial that pits the two actresses 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.”
The 38-year-old Hollywood 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”.
Gadot said, “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 that she is 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.”
Heart of Stone also stars Jamie Dornan, Sophie Okonedo, and Matthias Schweighofer.