Heart of Stone director Tom Harper recently explained why Gal Gadot’s lead character was written to be the female James Bond.
“There were a couple of things that immediately jumped out at me, the first was that it was an original movie in a genre that is full of great franchises, but things that have been around for a long time — the Mission: Impossibles or the Bonds or the Bournes,” shared Harper in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “I love those films, but they’ve all been around for decades, so working on something that was an addition to that genre but an original piece of material felt really exciting and was a real opportunity. And I also just loved the fact that it had a female protagonist at the heart of it.”
While there have been some successful female-fronted action films like the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider series, Harper thought that a new franchise centered around a female agent was long overdue. “That’s something that we’ve seen very rarely in that genre,” he said. “The thing that Gal and [producers at] Skydance spoke about a lot was they wanted Rachel to be a character that wasn’t just a female actress playing a sort of male character, but a woman at the heart of it who was responding differently.” Based on Harper’s comments, it sounds like, although Gadot’s Rachel Stone will be inspired by fictional male spies like Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and James Bond (last played by Daniel Craig), her character will view the mission differently than her male counterparts would.
Could Heart of Stone Become Gal Gadot’s Next Franchise?
Heart of Stone is being envisioned as the start of a new franchise for Netflix. Gadot is no stranger to franchises having previously starred in Universal’s Fast & Furious series as Gisele Yashar and in Warner Bros.’ DC Extended Universe as Wonder Woman. She also appeared in the second installment of Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot film series — Death on the Nile — and is slated to reprise her role as The Bishop, opposite Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds, in two sequels to 2021’s Red Notice, which is also part of the Netflix family. With Gadot’s tenure as Wonder Woman possibly ending with James Gunn’s forthcoming reboot, fans could see Rachel Stone become the actor’s next recurring role.
First announced in 2020, Heart of Stone centers on “elite agent, Rachel Stone (Gadot), who harbors a secret even bigger than her career with the MI6: She’s the only woman who stands between an ultra-mysterious, powerful, global, peace-keeping organization the Charter, and the loss of its most valuable — and dangerous — asset, the Heart,” reads the film’s official synopsis.
Joining Gadot in Heart of Stone are Jamie Dornan, Alia Bhatt, Sophie Okonedo, Matthias Schweighöfer, Jing Lusi and Paul Ready. Heart of Stone is currently scheduled to debut on Netflix on Aug. 11.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
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