‘Wonder Woman 1984’ Star Did All Their Own Stunts: ‘You Couldn’t Find a Better Stunt Person To Cover Her if You Scoured the World’
After years of waiting, the sequel to Wonder Woman has finally arrived. Though the path to the big screen (and HBO Max) was a rocky one, Wonder Woman 1984 offers much of what the first film did — including many of the same actors. Learn which star did all of their stunts in the sequel.
‘Wonder Woman 1984’ brings back ‘Wonder Woman’ stars
In 2017’s Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot portrays Diana Prince, an Amazonian warrior. She lives in Themyscira with her mom, Hippolyta, played by Connie Nielsen, and her aunt, Antiope (Robin Wright). Diana leaves the island to help Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor, a WWI fighter pilot, fight Ares.
Due to the first film’s success, a sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, came to be. The film takes the action from 1918 to the ’80s. Amazons don’t age as people do, so Gadot, Nielsen, and Wright reprise their roles without question. However, Pine’s seemingly dead character also returns, looking mysteriously unchanged.
Lilly Aspell reprises her role as young Diana in the sequel
Lilly Aspell had a smaller role in Wonder Woman. She portrayed Diana at age 8, from scenes early in the film. In it, Diana watches the Amazons train, mimicking their movements. Her mother wants to protect her, but Diana desperately wants to learn how to fight. Antiope takes notice, deciding to train her herself.
Like Gadot, Nielsen, Wright, and Pine, Aspell reprised her role in Wonder Woman 1984. Once again, she opens the film. Ahead of the movie’s Christmas Day premiere, HBO Max shared the first scenes from it, in which Gadot narrates as Aspell competes in the Amazon games alongside older warriors.
Aspell not only acts but does her own stunts
Being a young actor in a film full of adults is incredible as it is. But Aspell isn’t just an actor — in the action-heavy sequence, she also performs feats of athleticism. “She did everything herself,” said stunt coordinator Rob Inch in an exclusive for The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “She was never doubled.”
“She’s just fearless. She goes for everything — she just does it,” said Jade Lewis, an actor who plays a competitor in the Amazon games. “Not a lot of kids can do that. That is amazing,” said Wonder Woman 1984 writer-director Patty Jenkins. “It’s stunning,” she added. “You couldn’t find a better stunt person to cover her if you if you scoured the world.”
Gal Gadot says Aspell was the ‘highlight’ for her
When audiences think of Wonder Woman — both the character and the films — it’s impossible not to think of Gadot. But for the lead herself, she notes that the highlight of watching the movie wasn’t her scenes; it was those in which Aspell portrayed Diana from the opening scenes.
“All of a sudden, watching the Olympic games, I wasn’t Gal watching it,” she told Fandango in an interview. “It was the 10-year-old girl watching another 10-year-old doing the most amazing things that I, as a person, never got to witness. And it got me really moved.”
