As soon as I went to painting school in New York, I took an experimental film course, and everything clicked and came together. I realized my love of music and drama and the visual arts all came together.
It's been my experience with damaged people: they don't wake up every day and wallow in the bad things that have happened to them.
To me, the two things that Gal Gadot - who is an amazing actress, and she played a great Wonder Woman - but the true things that she actually has inside of her are this incredible warmth and charm that is also informed by great intelligence. It's those two things.
I believe in Wonder Woman and the true spirit of Wonder Woman, and I wanted to tell that story. I didn't want to make her an alt version of Wonder Woman.
There's the 7-year-old me that pretended to be Wonder Woman running around the schoolyard. Like, what an incredible thing to imagine that when the bully shows up or the villain, you would be strong enough to do something about it. But, also, you look like Lynda Carter while you're doing it - like, 'Oh, my God.'
There's a lot of mythological stories you can tell. There's not just one. I appreciate all of those different kinds, but what I was personally missing was grand, classic, true-north hero. Pure and simple emotion, and also aiming for big time emotion, like love story as well, in a very sincere way. Like 'Superman: The Movie' had done for me.
