The Israeli superstar, who recently announced that she is pregnant with her third daughter, recently spoke at a Zoom press conference about the series with international journalists.
Impact features 12-minute episodes about extraordinary women around the world, including a young Brazilian ballerina who teaches dance and discipline to girls in a crime-ridden favela; a 19-year-old in Puerto Rico who has invented a device that provides fresh water to those who need it; a California surfer who is mourning the loss of her sister to COVID and who helps women heal from trauma by surfing; and a figure skater who coaches African-American girls in Detroit.
Asked by The Jerusalem Post about what surprised her the most when she began working on the series, she replied, “Their determination surprised me, inspired me. What surprised me the most, I gotta say, is when we started to do the research for the stories of the different women, and at the beginning, we started working on this project three years ago and we started doing the research for the rest of the stories about a year and a half ago and the show was entirely global and we had some stories that took place in the United States and the rest of them were all in different continents.
“...and then COVID hit and then we thought we’ve got to go back to the sketchboard and figure out different stories that are going to be strong enough to have an effect and to inspire people and the amount of stories that we found were mind blowing – it was like literally super hard to choose which ones you’re going to end up telling and which one you won’t.
“I feel like we’re living in such a dark era where... so many people are not taking responsibility for their actions and they’re just angry and I think there is just something so refreshing, that was at least my experience, there is something so refreshing to surround yourself and to hear these stories that are driven by good and good will and yeah, I guess that was the biggest thing for me.”
IN RECENT weeks, she has undertaken a huge international publicity blitz to promote the show, appearing on such programs as Conan O’Brien’s talk show and Jimmy Kimmel Live.
She spoke to O’Brien about how “privileged” she felt to be telling these women’s stories, but she was not averse to joking around a little, telling the host, “I’m the annoying mom that doesn’t let them [her daughters] have enough screen time and says no all the time and I’m that type of person and to them, it’s not like I’m Wonder Woman. Only when there are friends around, it’s like I’m still cool. We’ll see how long that’s gonna last.”
Talking about how her relationship with her husband and producing partner, Jaron Varsano, is going strong and how they have not had problems because they have been home together much of the time during the pandemic, she made a very Israeli Jewish gesture, tapping the table and saying, “Tfoo, tfoo, tfoo,” meaning that she didn’t want to jinx anything. O’Brien was puzzled and asked what she meant. She replied, “You do it against the evil eye.” He wondered if it was an Israeli thing and she said, “It’s Polish Jewish. You knock on wood and you spit.” He joked that now he needs her to teach him Hebrew starting at 9 a.m. on Sundays and she says, “I’ll do it on Mondays.” She also taught him how to say “good luck” (b’hatzlacha) in Hebrew and he learned quite well, but at the end of the segment he admitted he had forgotten what she had told him.
She also avoided jinxes when she spoke to Kimmel, knocking on wood when she talked about Israel’s handling of the coronavirus and the Israeli vaccination program, saying, “I think they’ve done a really good job as far as explaining how good the [coronavirus] vaccination is. So people went [to get the vaccine] and felt like they were getting holy water injected into their arms, which is partially true, and now they’ve having the time of their lives. I’m super proud of them and jealous. It was [Israeli] Independence Day last week and they were all partying and sending us videos. It’s like 2019 again, like COVID never happened. I’m happy for them and it’s great. I just want to be with them and have fun with them as well.”
Her Wonder Woman sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, was one of the top-grossing movies this year in theatrical release in the US in spite of the pandemic and is also streaming on HBO Max. It is expected to be shown in theaters in Israel this summer.